The Fantastique Library

Hello! This is a website containing English translations (and the original French) of the PUBLIC-DOMAIN works of Jacques Sternberg, thought to be the most prolific writer of short stories of the 20th century, writing over 1,500 during his lifetime. Sternberg's extremely short stories successfully mix several diverse elements: a very dark sense of Surreal humor, a kafkaesque notion of the absurd, a taste for the macabre, and finally, a somber, pessimistic vision of the world and the future.

An obscure figure in life and death, Sternberg developed a very unique style of writing, with nameless charcters and themes including aliens misguidedly posing as African-Americans to invade America, the 533rd crucifixion of Jesus, the casual destruction of Earth by aliens who cannot understand humanity, etc. These stories are all but unfindable in their english translations online today (and the majority of them have never been translated before), so this site seeks to bring them to a larger audience.

Note: I am using several translation services to produce these texts, and make minor changes as I see fit to increase readability and structure to the writing. If you find errors in comparing the writing to the original French present on each page, leave a comment on this Neocities site or email me at jdlacabe@gmail.com.