Jan Urban | Author
Short Stories
I have always loved to write short stories. Not that it was ever easy—but you could write a story in a relatively short time. Short stories are a great way to learn how to write. I wrote many with that in mind, and many failed, some doomed from the start, some overinflated, immature, or just useless. Others failed for lack of experience, or simply for lack of the right word at the right time.I wish I had written more.
I’ve written far more stories than I’ve shared here. I'll be adding more over time.
A group of children in a liminal space between life and death within a fire-damaged manor.
Emerged in 2025 from recursive writing play. The recursive structure mirrors their psychological state, with each cycle revealing slightly different fragments of their reality.
A boy watches a woman from the window of a shop where he works, all while being terrorised by his German boss.
This story was a finalist in the short story contest Poviedka in 2005, which meant a great deal to me at the time.
The style is quite different from my usual—less lyrical, but still intimate and explosive. Translated from Slovak.
As a boy, he builds his first shelter out of cardboard; as a man, he marks crosses on an empty page in his first apartment.
A young man’s reflection—or just a hint—on shelters and people. Something autobiographical and playful meets here.
I studied Dutch in Brussels, and in 2014 I took a chance and entered a writing contest for students in Belgium and the Netherlands (Schrijfprijs). I won with this piece.
Melancholic, quietly hopeful.
Translated from Dutch.
A story of solitude, of planting something by accident, and descending a mountain with someone unexpected.
A touch of magic. The kind I love.
I wrote it one Sunday afternoon. It won 1st place at HORALFEST 2006, Slovakia’s festival celebrating mountain-themed art and writing.
Translated from Slovak.
A lullaby, a broken mirror, a girl named Nadja. A fragile piece about love, illness, memory, and the emotion someone leaves behind. Tender, strange, mournful.
Written in Slovak, translated without smoothing the edges.
Three strange tales: a wooden cylinder, a falling star, a stolen painting. Small events that turn into fables. Translated from Slovak.
A fragile companion unearthed one day. A story about loneliness and childhood, with a touch of magical realism to hold it all together. Quiet and surreal.
Originally written in Slovak, the story has been rendered in formal, classical English. A voice that simply felt right for its tender spirit.
A man steps into darkness and meets a woman who may be love. Or death.
This was my very first short story that I felt was ready to see the world, written in 2001. It won 1st prize in a regional contest.
Translated from Slovak and presented here as imperfect as it was, rereading it almost 25 years later.
An image of my first writing: atmospheric, internal, surreal. An apprentice to the craft, learning to put images from the head onto the paper.