‘The Horse Stealers’ by Anton Chekhov, translated by Constance Garnett

The protagonist in this story is a weak, vainglorious and complaisant man who is nonetheless entrusted with an important package. Sheltering from a blizzard in a low inn, surrounded by brigands whom he feels the unaccountable urge to impress, it is obvious from the beginning that he is going to meet his downfall. But as a reader, my capacity to care was not reduced by the inevitability – in fact it was increased by it. The notion that character is fate is demonstrated beautifully; there’s this sense of clear-eyed empathy for human weakness – but also the sheer romance of folly, its allure and siren song, and the call of the void beneath it.

First published in 1890. Collected in The Horse-Stealers and Other Stories, Macmillan, 1921, latterly Ecco Press, 1986

‘The Story of the Eye’ ‘by Lord Auch’, i.e. Georges Bataille

When writers recommend stories, they often do so from an instructional perspective, as examples of what you should do (but probably won’t). I present ‘The Story of the Eye’ as an example of what you could do, but probably shouldn’t. It is an erotic fantasy with kink/fetish elements (centred on eyes) written with an ostensibly therapeutic purpose. What elevates it from simple pornography is its association with Roland Barthes, who wrote an essay discussing its symbolism. I agree with Barthes to the extent that I enjoy the way in which the plot of ‘The Story of the Eye’ is subservient to the arrangement and rearrangement of a limited palette of motifs. I also appreciate the truth that it represents: while the results are ostensibly shocking or morally abhorrent, the ultimate end point of Bataille’s working out of his fixations is to reveal the limits of his imagination – that is, the centres of gravity to which his imagination must always wend, when allowed (or abandoned to) “imaginative freedom”.

First published in French as L’Histoire de L’Oeil, Pia et Bonnel, 1928. First published in English by Olympia Press, 1955, translated by Audiart, then Urizen Books, 1978, translated by Joachim Neugroschal

‘Auction’ by María Fernanda Ampuero, translated by Frances Riddle

I read to be knocked sideways, to be prodded and pricked. To feel grit under the skin. I don’t read for comfort or reassurance. This story, this collection flayed me raw. 

First published in English by Words Without Borders and available to read here. Collected in Cockfight, Feminist Press/Influx, 2020