In Greek it is called a micro story, and also micro story, micro story, micro story, bonsai story, etc. In English it is called flash-fiction. In Spanish, respectively, there are also many proposed names: minicuento, minirrelato, microrrelato, nanocuento, relato minimo, cuentimino, etc.

All these terms are trying to define not so much a fiction that is short (in terms of the number of words) and fleeting, but the prose of abstraction, prose that asks the reader for his active participation, so that he himself creates his own narrative, using the basic materials proposed by the author.

One such active reader is Dimitris Handzopoulos: an avowed lover of the genre (he also designed the cover of an anthology of Greek stories published in 2020 in Spain, edited by Konstantinos Palaiologos and Eduardo Lootena) did not limit himself to reading stories written in Spanish, but he additionally turned them into drawings. Beautiful designs that give the history of bonsai what in some other field we would call “added value”, here we will call the fruitful play of image on the word.

The Hispanic story with literary ambition emerged around the end of the 19th century and, more dynamically, in the early 20th when it flourished. Then Jorge Luis Borges, Augusto Monterosso, Julio Cortazar, Eduardo Galeano, Ana María Sua and many others gave the genre such an impetus that we can safely say that they had a decisive influence on the history of the story. Today, the story has an astonishing spread: anthologies are published, international competitions are organized, conferences are held, awards are established, and it has become a global phenomenon with the help of the Internet.

Important writers from Spain and Hispanic America, such as the above and above, will be featured in the coming weeks from the “K” pages, translated by Konstantinos Palaiologos (AUTH Professor – Translator) and illustrated by reading Dimitris Handzopoulos. Today is just the beginning.