Term: Contemporary Fiction

Explore all pages categorised under the heading Contemporary Fiction below.

All categories can be seen on the main index page.

The Painter

Nora met Javi when he bumped into her with the still-lit end of a hand-rolled cigarette. At first, Nora thought someone had spiked her with...

The Overture

Evan had hoped for a relaxing three-hour train ride on the scenic route from Aberystwyth to Birmingham. He knew he could not expect the same...

The Intruder

One of my recent lovers told me that what happened might well have happened without the intrusion of Arthur Beamish. But how could it have? In...

The Deserted Village

Far away from here, in the northernmost part of the province, where the forest gives way to tundra, there still exists an old village where...

Nudity Required

In between rows of Victorian houses painted in greys and beiges that blended in with the concrete of the streets and the parked cars sat...

Nothing Justified Continuing

The road trip was meant to be fun. It was, for a while. Then the excitement faded, and all that was left was ourselves. Nothing...

The Nostalgia Clinic

On my very first visit to Café Bagatelle, clutching a beaten copy of Homage to Catalonia and a notebook in my right hand, the heavy...

Fintas Beach

A patch of flat, scorched earth wedged between Iraq and Saudi Arabia, Kuwait turns east like a falcon’s head to shriek at the Gulf. In...

Falling

They shove off together barefoot with no plan, a couple fearless Huck Finns. New love is always built on the kind of trust you put...

Early Blossoms Falter

We passed through Homs, then headed west into the hills toward Draykeesh. I’d been in the country for three months, and it was nearly spring,...

Charlie Fish and the Graphene Quantum Dots

Walked roughly southwest this morning, down Market Street from the bay in the crowded well-appointed business district of San Francisco. Lovely weather; wishing it were...

The Other Paris

Every generation thinks it discovers sex and Paris. My 1970s discovery occurred with a Greek anti-hero in an intimate, inexpensive, crumbling Île Saint-Louis hotel. Paris...

Désolée, Monsieur

“Maurice Groenberg? Je suis désolée, monsieur.” “Madame, s’il vous plaît. I’m certain my father lived here from 1924 to 1942. He was a well-known pianist,...

The Sleepwalker's Paris

I wake up every morning to things that shouldn’t be there. This morning it’s a metro ticket for Line 15. There is no Line 15....

The Colour of Windex and Mouthwash

The island was hard to get to. It took a redeye flight to Miami, then a tiny plane with absurdly good service, where I was...

The City of Love Does It Again

Pam and I had often talked about having a girls’ weekend in Paris. The idea started at art school thirty years ago when we first...

Issue 15: Paris

Paris has long been the site of opulence, resistance, rebellion, and style. It has inspired great writing and writers, philosophy and philosophers. In this collection,...

Land of the Swaying Palms

Land of the Swaying Palms. It was an expression Dora remembered from her childhood, a joke she and her best friend shared from their lonely...

In Too Deep

David looked up from the canvas that he was painting on the floor to check on the flurrying snow outside. He didn’t usually start getting...

Issue 14: Survival

Welcome to Panorama: The Journal of Travel, Place, and Nature’s 14th edition, on the theme of ‘survival.’ Many thanks to all contributors and the editors...

Infinite scroll

Scroll through all work published by Panorama in one long infinitely scrolling page.

How to Make Love to Fire

My wife will see the fire first. Or so she claims, whilst unfolding the picnic and arranging the cheese sandwiches and soft-boiled eggs. She asks...

Touristed

“Professor Wen Ming, Professor Wen Ming!” He looked back, the key to his office door pausing mid-rotation. Lin, the department secretary, waved at him from...

Permeation

There are many moves with unlimited manoeuvres in chess. Before the opening gambit, it was known to us – Paula and me. Despite this, as...

Smouldering

Zain squinted his eyes. The temperature was in the high nineties. The sky was clear but the air felt humid. He was short of breath,...

Issue 13: Fire

Welcome to Panorama: The Journal of Travel, Place, and Nature’s 13th edition, on the theme of ‘fire.’ Fire: /ˈfʌɪə/ origin: Old English fȳr (noun), fȳrian...

With Grace

They’d gone on much longer than she’d expected them to. A quick bite had turned to two courses, a drink had turned to five, and...

Fishkids

This is the furthest I’ve ever been from the centre of Leicester. I was born there and haven’t moved since. We all know about the...

Neighbours

I walk out of my building—a fifteen-year-old highrise—and greet the neighbour who hasn’t paid his maintenance dues since we moved in. I am surprised to...

Issue 12: Cities

Welcome to Panorama: The Journal of Travel, Place, and Nature’s 12th edition. In this issue, we present work on the theme of ‘cities,’ whether in...

Cartagena

Driving up to the Airbnb, I was mesmerized by the colors, an endless strip of pastel Spanish homes with white shutters and overflowing bougainvilleas. I...

Emergency Alert

The times were tumultuous, sure, but no different from any other. Wars, famine, floods, oppression. Social media clamored with threats of global climate collapse. Roy...

The Land Beyond

You have no idea what to do on your arrival in the city whose name you do not know. You step off the train after...

Still Waters

The ferry towers above Amran, twice the height of the tallest coconut palm, a floating city home to more people than the island his family...

Issue 11: Ecology

Welcome to Panorama’s 11th edition. In this issue we turn our attention to ecology—from the word’s earliest roots to present-day ecologies which span people, organisms,...

Issue 10: Intimacy

Welcome to Panorama: The Journal of Travel, Place, and Nature’s 10th edition. This issue focuses on INTIMACY in all its forms from a closeness and...

Six Saturdays of Beyblade

It was raining hard that night and the howls of stray dogs echoed across the village. What I remember from those scenes come as passing...

The Man, the Kid, and the Holy Ghost

The train whistle blew. A body plopped onto the bench across from Bart just as the train lurched forward. The grizzled man cracked open his...

The Confluence

“Potverdomme!” Marty pounded his fist on the antique table, knocking books to the floor. Used to the interjection, I murmured, “What happened this time?” I...

The Bookshop (Once in Pisa)

When I read the anonymous email I knew immediately that it was you. The urgency in your voice sounded loud in my ears like Sunday...

Issue 9: Borders

In this issue we have work from India, Nigeria, Philippines, Israel, Netherlands, UK, USA, Brazil, South Korea, Thailand, Germany, Italy, and more. In many ways...

Where Have you Been?

I had to get out – to get some air. I’ve been lost inside something, inside something strange, inside myself, in the small rooms that...

The Olive Theory

“It’s almost time to close your eyes.” Oisín shifted down into third gear, letting the car roll through the winding hills of Malin Beg. Niamh...

The Librarian’s Flame, or Alexandria

The pale, blue horizon was covered in a searing mist. The late summer humidity cast a mirage of white fog over the northerly, African city....

El Escritor

Once there was a writer who lived in Mexico City who despaired of his calling. Most days he rose toward noon and went for a...

Beware of Wildlife

Rick—my girlfriend’s dad—turned purple in the driver’s seat of the minivan, a rental whose timing belt screeched like a tortured cat the entire fifty miles...

Issue 8: Space

Welcome to Panorama: The Journal of Travel, Place, and Nature’s SPACE issue. From the very small to the enormity of our imaginations, essays grow from...

Issue 7: Dawn

Welcome to Panorama: The Journal of Travel, Place, and Nature’s DAWN issue. This bright, awakening, and challenging composition comprises a multitude of world views, places,...

Crossing the Curtain

Edward parked his car with care. The Hofburg palace loomed to his right against a gray and star-less sky. A stray dog lifted its leg...

Smoked

When a dark-haired young man walked up to the Honorable Desmond Bernard in the public room of the Aristophanes Club and silently presented him with...

Going East and West

It was in 1985, on my first business trip to Beirut, that I met the woman who was to become my wife. The fighting between...

Issue 6: War & Peace

Welcome to Panorama’s WAR & PEACE issue. This collection, months in the making, deeply explores the themes of war and peace, with a special emphasis...

An Imposition of Greatness

On February 23, 1945, in the final year of the Second World War, the following words were transmitted during a vicious battle from a bird...

Dressed for Eden

We are always burying the dead. In this way, we are like the church interiors of old Dutch prints. Often in the background, workers have...

Swallowed Things

Today I will tell a story of a man I never married. Like water, some things are meant to be swallowed, the others wash away...

Issue 5: Lost

Welcome to Panorama‘s long-awaited LOST, our fifth issue, which we are dedicating to the great traveller, Anthony Bourdain, whose recent passing has affected us all....

Philippi

“There’s a story here,” she said. I told her I didn’t doubt it. “Each town has at least one or two stories behind it, right?”...

Repeatable Sequence #5

The dangerous ingredients are all there. Baja California and everything that conjures. Sun, ocean, tequila, rip tides. A handsome, young couple in the throes of...

What Better Way Than This

I’m slowly making my way south. Today I watched goats, grape vines and sunflowers from the train to Sicily. The sunflowers were enormous—elephant stalks, brown...

Four Days

The International terminal is a bustle of activity. Strong lights illuminate a massive stone sculpture, with a dazzling effect because of all the sand particles...

Flames and Shadows

‘I would like a coffee with milk and a sandwich with ham and cheese please.’ ‘Bitte?’ She stood there, pen and notepad in hand, her...

Issue 4: Seen

Perhaps more than any other time in recent history, how we see places and one another will determine what happens next to our human family....

The Leaving

The streets were empty, as were all the houses in that village. He walked from door to door, ringing doorbells that made no sound, climbed...

Fermentation

There had been bombings, small ones that failed for the most part. A detonation in front of the Israeli Embassy that wounded only the bomber,...

Win

Capable—if unreliable—little motorcycles, a used Honda Win can be had for around US$200. Boasting 110cc engines, endlessly replaced, welded and salvaged clutches, wheels, brakes, handlebars,...

Boulevard of Open Dreams

Plaza de la Cathedral, is an open space except during special events like Liberation Day. On Liberation Day, bands, stands and volunteer hands fill the...

Looking for Joe

It is early morning and the hot winds fragranced with the aromas of sun baked earth and prairie grass blow through the car. Ahead the...

Keisha Goes to Harvard

When Keisha wrote down Harvard University on the list her college counsellor gave her parents, it was because she knew that he would tell her...

Issue 3: Open

We present our panoramic vision of travel literature in our Spring ‘Open’ issue. A carefully curated collection of travel poetry, fiction, and memoir, the selections...

The Ice Cream Scoop

The frightened moon and stars were hiding. The typhoon howled and dredged the Philippine Sea in search of living things. In a stolen outrigger with...

The Ship Breakers

The Bay of Bengal in Bangladesh devours her children. I’ve worked in the delta’s sludge for five years, and already she has consumed the big...

The Hair

Abdul didn’t hear her say those words. But that’s what he imagined she would be saying to the men in front of her. She made...

Issue 2: Treasures

Welcome to Panorama’s second issue. Panorama exists not only to publish extraordinary, diverse travel literature and imagery, but to widen the definition of what travel...

Mystery at Jackass Gulch

He’d been silent, the other man at the bar, gazing into his glass of whiskey before growing animated at the mention of Mark Twain. “I...

The Rumour

Once upon a time, the Princess circulated a rumour. It began on her island at the top of her tower, in her round room, at...

Weekend Reading

Read all articles, essays, poems, and stories published on Panorama on the weekends in between issues.

Issue 1: Firsts

Welcome to Panorama‘s first issue. Our purpose is to shift the perspective of travel literature and imagery towards a more panoramic, modern worldview, and we...

Letter from Home: Farasan Island

I can imagine you trying to open the envelope that contains this letter, as weariness conquers you. I know you are still trying to come...

Our Own Archipelago

Two days since midsummer passed. We partied all night on summer cottage decking and drank strong beer with a bear’s face snarling at us from...

Cherry Picking

At twilight, Johnny roams the narrow streets. He passes the central square, the old church and the launderette. He walks on searching for something. When...

Mutola

Chivambo loved to tell stories, but this one was his favourite. He told it as often as he could. Some heard it when he was...