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DAVID RENTON is puzzled by an ambitious attempt to look back on world culture from the future without engaging with or understanding it
A trawl for terse tales
Want to see your name in print? Now's your chance... ANDY HEDGECOCK explains how you can do it in this guide to writing 'flash fiction' and how you can submit your work to the Morning Star
MICHAEL STEWART applauds a fun send-up of the substandard Agatha Christie whodunnit
LEO BOIX reviews a novella by Brazilian Ana Paula Maia, and poetry by Peruvian Giancarlo Huapaya, and Chilean Elvira Hernandez
BRENT CUTLER unpicks the cryptic clues of a book within a book within a murder mystery
Reviews of the Neil Charles Quartet, the Freddie Hubbard Quintet, and the Olie Brice Quartet
GLENN BURGESS suggests that, despite his record in Spain, Orwell’s enduring commitment to socialist revolution underpins his late novels
WHAT is flash fiction? Poet and fiction writer Nuala Ni Chonchuir describes it as “intense, urgent and often a little explosive, but also deep and clear.” All in fewer than 1,000 words.
One well-known flash is a six-word tragedy, sometimes attributed to Ernest Hemingway: “For sale, baby shoes, never worn.”
The most common formats are the drabble or micro fiction (100 words), the dribble or mini-saga (50 words), sudden fiction (750 words) and twitterature (280 characters). But a quick browse of online flash competitions reveals a more varied range of word lengths.
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