A collection of the twenty best contemporary short stories selected by series editor Laura Furman from hundreds of literary magazines, The PEN/O. Henry Prize Stories 2009 features unforgettable tales in settings as diverse as post-war Vietnam, a luxurious seaside development in Cape Town, an Egyptian desert village, and a permanently darkened New York City. Also included are essays from the eminent jurors on their favorite stories, observations from the winners on what inspired them, and an extensive resource list of magazines. From the Trade Paperback edition.
Eleven women confront dramas both every-day and outlandish in Caitlin Horrocks’ This Is Not Your City. In stories as darkly comic as they are unflinching, people isolated by geography, emotion, or circumstance cut imperfect paths to peace—they have no other choice. A Russian mail-order bride in Finland is rendered silent by her dislocation and loss of language; the mother of a severely disabled boy writes him postcards he'll never read on a cruise ship held hostage by pirates; and an Iowa actuary wanders among the reincarnations of those she's known in her 127 lives. Horrocks’ women find no simple escapes, and their acts of faith and acts of imagination in making do are as shrewd as they are surprising.
The PEN/O. Henry Prize Stories 2011 contains twenty unforgettable stories selected from hundreds of literary magazines. The winning tales take place in such far-flung locales as Madagascar, Nantucket, a Midwestern meth lab, Antarctica, and a post-apocalyptic England, and feature a fascinating array of characters: aging jazzmen, avalanche researchers, a South African wild child, and a mute actor in silent films. Also included are essays from the eminent jurors on their favorite stories, observations from the winners on what inspired them, and an extensive resource list of magazines. Your Fate Hurtles Down at You Jim Shepard Diary of an Interesting Year Helen Simpson Melinda Judy Doenges Nightblooming Kenneth Calhoun The Restoration of the Villa Where Tibor Kálmán Once Lived Tamas Dobozy Ice Lily Tuck How to Leave Hialeah Jennine Capó Crucet The Junction David Means Pole, Pole Susan Minot Alamo Plaza Brad Watson The Black Square Chris Adrian Nothing of Consequence Jane Delury The Rules Are the Rules Adam Foulds The Vanishing American Leslie Parry Crossing Mark Slouka Bed Death Lori Ostlund Windeye Brian Evenson Sunshine Lynn Freed Never Come Back Elizabeth Tallent Something You Can’t Live Without Matthew Neill Null For author interviews, photos, and more, go to www.ohenryprizestories.com A portion of the proceeds from this book will go to support the PEN Readers & Writers Literary Outreach Program. From the Trade Paperback edition.
The PEN/O. Henry Prize Stories 2012 gathers twenty of the best short stories of the year, selected from thousands published in literary magazines. These remarkable stories explore the boundaries of the imagination in settings as various as an army training camp in China, the salt mines of Detroit, a divided Balkan town, and the eye of a hurricane. Also included are essays from the eminent jurors on their favorite stories, observations from the winners on what inspired them, and an extensive resource list of magazines.
The Southwest of the twenty-first century is full of surprises, and so is this collection of southwestern short stories published between 2007 and 2011. The writers represented here remind us that this is not the “Old Southwest” of gunfighters and sagebrush but, instead, a place of rock collectors, palm readers, and Russian mail-order brides. Well-known authors like Sallie Bingham, Ron Carlson, Laura Furman, and Dagoberto Gilb are joined here by exciting newcomers Eddie Chuculate, Don Waters, Claire Vaye Watkins, and others.
Set among such divergent places as a small-town in Minnesota, an Albuquerque airport, A Belizean café and a hotel swimming pool in Java, Ostlund's Flannery O'Connor Award (2008) winning debut collection depicts sexually and socially repressed Americans. Men and women who wind up feeling displaced when they fail to escape the influence of their past; ineffectual parents, fathers and lovers who disappear, teachers who struggle to connect with their students, and lifelong obsessions with language.
Fiction. Asian American Studies. In the stories in Karl Taro Greenfeld's NOWTRENDS, a reporter is sent to Chengdu, China, to interview a young, drug-addled starlet and finds that a fellow journalist with questionable political ties has been imprisoned; a struggling, Japanese artist is asked by government officials to invent a cartoon character that will prove as popular as Disney's Mickey Mouse; and a man carries 2100 milliliters of his own urine as he encounters heckling youths, Meg Whitman, and his father, who may or may not be dead. Greenfeld writes beautifully crafted stories with an authority, humor, and confidence reminiscent of Bret Easton Ellis, Phillip Roth, and Ernest Hemingway. His stories have been chosen for inclusion in Best American Short Stories 2009 and The PEN/O. Henry Prize Stories 2012.
Asian American literature is one of the most recent forms of ethnic literature and is already becoming one of the most prominent, given the large number of writers, the growing ethnic population from the region, the general receptivity of this body of work, and the quality of the authors. In recent decades, there has been an exponential growth in their output and much Asian American literature has now achieved new levels of popular success and critical acclaim. Nurtured by rich and long literary traditions from the vast continent of Asia, this literature is poised between the ancient and the modern, between the East and West, and between the oral and the written. The Historical Dictionary of Asian American Literature and Theater covers the activities in this burgeoning field. First, its history is traced year by year from 1887 to the present, in a chronology, and the introduction provides a good overview. The most important section is the dictionary, with over 600 substantial and cross-referenced entries on authors, books, and genres as well as more general ones describing the historical background, cultural features, techniques and major theatres and clubs. More reading can be found through an extensive bibliography with general works and those on specific authors. The book is thus a good place to get started, or to expanded one’s horizons, about a branch of American literature that can only grow in importance.
"Lydia Peelle has given us a collection of stories so artfully constructed and deeply imagined they read like classics. It marks the beginning of what will surely be a long and beautiful career." —Ann Patchett In Reasons for and Advantages of Breathing, Lydia Peelle brings together eight brilliant stories—two of which won Pushcart Prizes and one of which won an O. Henry Prize—that peer straight into the human heart. In startling and original prose, she examines lives derailed by the loss of a vital connection to the land and to the natural world of which they are a part. Reasons for and Advantages of Breathing conveys an almost Faulknerian ache for the pre-modern South, for a landscape and a way of life lost to the ravages of money and technology.
In his first book of stories since The Bridegroom, National Book Award-winning author Ha Jin gives us a collection that delves into the experience of Chinese immigrants in America. A lonely composer takes comfort in the antics of his girlfriend's parakeet; young children decide to change their names so they might sound more "American," unaware of how deeply this will hurt their grandparents; a Chinese professor of English attempts to defect with the help of a reluctant former student. All of Ha Jin's characters struggle to remain loyal to their homeland and its traditions while also exploring the freedom that life in a new country offers. Stark, deeply moving, acutely insightful, and often strikingly humorous, A Good Fall reminds us once again of the storytelling prowess of this superb writer.
