Section

Stories

Short stories by Pilo Zyba and the Albanian writers we publish.

The Last Nail

A pale evening light fell over the town of Pejë, mingled with the shadows of the mountains and the heavy silence of the centuries-old stones. There, in the lap of the hills that…

Pilo Zyba6 June 20268 min read

Stories

Before a Mother's Heart

In the coastal town of Saranda, the spring morning of March began with a gentle rocking of the waves, like a giant blue notebook with lines of...

Vjollca Tiku Pasku

Stories

Karafilushi, the Doctor and the London Red Alert

In London, the state chases after your health more than your relatives in Albania chase after property. Here it does not matter if you are well or unwell. If the doctor calls you…

Pilo Zyba24 May 2026

Stories

In Your Eyes

I met your eyes only two or three times and felt their smile catch fire in my own. Those eyes that broke apart the sunbeam before it touched…

Izota Rexho Haruni

Stories

A Dry Beach

In London, the sun is like an honest minister: it appears rarely and leaves quickly. Therefore, as soon as I saw that the sky had…

Pilo Zyba22 May 2026

Stories

Even from Afar

We were madly, clumsily, shamelessly… and agonizingly in love with each other. We were hopeless, I must add, because that fury of mutual possession…

Enxhi Krasniqi

Stories

The Business Card of Prison 313

When I returned from Greece after two years of emigration, Albania was no longer the country I had left. The streets had changed, the people, the way they spoke, the way...

Pilo Zyba16 May 2026

Stories

Ladi Ndini’s “Plucked-Neck Duck”

Kalamata at that time, thirty years ago, had a special light. Not just from the sun that caressed the sea every morning, but from the people who arrived...

Pilo Zyba26 April 2026

Stories

The Road to Silence (2)

In those days, the publishing house informed me that my first book, “The Road to Freedom,” had been published in Greek. It felt as if something changed inside me.…

Pilo Zyba19 April 2026

Stories

The Road to Silence

It was 1994. The mountain village of Lakonia in the Peloponnese of Greece lay stretched across a dry slope, like a memory forgotten by time. The stone houses…

Pilo Zyba4 April 2026

Stories

Jealousy

FROM THE PSYCHOLOGIST’S PERSPECTIVE - Jealousy - BY PILO ZYBA In modern times, psychology has been called one of the most essential spheres of human life. It…

Pilo Zyba30 March 2026

Stories

From the Psychologist’s Diary

The knock was light, as if the person who wanted to come in was of two minds while standing at the door. One urged them to enter and the other to…

Pilo Zyba27 March 2026

Stories

Unfinished Novella

The chief of forensics, Mr. S., slammed the door of the XXLK12 jeep and ran up the stairs of the three-story villa, where he had been informed that…

Pilo Zyba23 March 2026

Stories

The Keeper of Memories

It was the early 90s. Albania was collapsing from within, like an old building that had carried the weight of history on its shoulders for too long. The factories…

Pilo Zyba9 March 2026

Stories

The House That Breathes

When I came out of the cemetery, the sun was strong, almost like a hot iron. It beat down on the marbles that had the brightness of a mirror, and ricocheted back to blind you…

Pilo Zyba16 February 2026