Stephanie Corinna Bille, a Swiss short-story writer, playwright, poet, and novelist and winner of the 1975 French Prix Concourt, is often considered the major contemporary Franco-Swiss woman writer. In The Transparent Girl and Other Stories Monika Giacoppe and Christiane Makward have assembled and translated a magnificent collection of Bille's work that exposes an English-speaking audience--many for the first time--to Bille's exotic, captivating, mystical, and sexually provocative stories.
Transparent’s Fiona McClean could be a superhero. She has a mutation that allows her to become invisible. But her father, a Las Vegas crime lord, forces her to use her power for evil. Since she was five, she’s been stealing cars, robbing banks, and spying on people. Fiona’s had enough, so she escapes to a small town far from her father’s reach. Happiness is hard to find surrounded by a mother she hates, a brother she can’t trust, and a guy at school she can’t stand, but Fiona manages to make some friends. And when her father finally tracks her down, Fiona discovers how far she’ll go to protect everyone she’s come to love. Fans of strong heroines like Daughter of Smoke and Bone’s Karou or Maximum Ride’s Max will fall in love with Transparent by Natalie Whipple.
“I talk like a lady who knows what she wants” is how the vagrant begins her story in “Trailer Girl”. As she struggles to rescue what she says is a wild girl hiding in the gully, the neighbors become more certain than ever that the child is imaginary--until there’s a murder. Stark and disturbing, “Trailer Girl” is the story of cycles of child abuse and the dream to escape them. In “Psychic”, a clairvoyant knows she’s been hired by a murderer, in “Leadership” a tiny spaceship lands between a boy and his parents, in “Venice”, a woman performs the Heimlich maneuver on an ex-husband, then flees by gondola, and in “White”, a grandfather explains to his grandson how a family is like a collection of chicken parts. Frequently violent, always passionate, these often short short stories are full-strength, as strong and precise as poetry.
Eric Linklater was one of the most respected and prolific Scottish writers of this century, yet more than twenty-five years have passed since his last collection of short stories was published. This selection covers Linklater's entire writing life. The settings are as various as the places where he lived - Orkney, India, California, Edinburgh and the Highlands - the events that take place, both fantastic and sensual in their depiction. A strong seam of Scottish history and culture runs through much of Linklater's work. The short stories include classics of the form, such as The Goose Girl and Kind Kitty, and wild variations on fairy stories, medieval myths, bawdy folktales, Viking sagas and 1920s crime reports. They derive from the magic of the world - love, beauty, ambition, drink and language. Their exuberant invention and comic verve provide glorious evidence for George Mackay Brown's assertion that 'Linklater is one of Scotland's best story-tellers ever'.
The stories included in this collection are classics of children's literature and have been cherished by generations of Portuguese children. This is the first time these stories have been translated into English. The author is one of Portugal's greatest poets and, like her poetry, these stories are filled with her delight and pleasure in nature, gardens and the sea, as well as her keen sense of the magical. Among other things, we encounter dwarves, diminutive little girls who live on the sea bed, plants that come alive at night, a tree that lives on long after it has been felled, and a pilgrim who discovers much more than the Holy Land. Her themes are, above all, loyalty and friendship.
Includes stories featured in Pantheon—now an animated series on AMC+ “I know this is going to sound hyperbolic, but when I’m reading Ken Liu’s stories, I feel like I’m reading a once-in-a-generation talent. I’m in awe.” —Jamie Ford, New York Times bestselling author “Captivating.” —BuzzFeed “Extraordinary.” —The Washington Post “Brilliant.” —The Chicago Tribune With the release of The Paper Menagerie and Other Stories, Ken Liu’s short fiction has resonated with a generation of readers. From stories about time-traveling assassins, to Black Mirror-esque tales of cryptocurrency and internet trolling, to heartbreaking narratives of parent-child relationships, The Hidden Girl and Other Stories is a far-reaching work that explores topical themes from the present and a visionary look at humanity’s future. This collection includes a selection of Liu’s speculative fiction stories over the past five years—seventeen of his best—plus a new novelette. In addition, it also features an excerpt from The Veiled Throne, the third book in Liu’s epic fantasy series The Dandelion Dynasty. Stories include: Ghost Days; Maxwell's Demon; The Reborn; Thoughts and Prayers; Byzantine Empathy; The Gods Will Not Be Chained; Staying Behind; Real Artists; The Gods Will Not Be Slain; Altogether Elsewhere, Vast Herds of Reindeer; The Gods Have Not Died in Vain; Memories of My Mother; Dispatches from the Cradle: The Hermit—Forty-Eight Hours in the Sea of Massachusetts; Grey Rabbit, Crimson Mare, Coal Leopard; A Chase Beyond the Storms (an excerpt from The Veiled Throne, Book 3 of the Dandelion Dynasty); The Hidden Girl; Seven Birthdays; The Message; Cutting
The Other Hybrid Archipelago presents the postcolonial literatures of the Francophone Indian Ocean islands to an Anglophone audience. The islands of Madagascar, Mauritius, Reunion, the Comoros, and the Seychelles form a region that has a particular cultural identity because of the varied mixture of populations that have settled there and the dominant influence of French colonialism. This survey concentrates on the period since the Second World War, when most of the islands achieved independence, except for Reunion and Mayotte, which maintain a regional status within the French Republic. The postcolonial approach suggests certain recurrent themes and preoccupations of the islands' cultures and an appropriate way to define their recent cultural production, while taking account of the burden of their colonial past. The rich cocktail of cultural and linguistic influences surveyed is situated in relation to the contemporary political and social context of the islands and their marginal status within the global economy.
A handkerchief left on a table. A young boy at an Indian circus. A Spaniard spinning on the dance floor. A pianist returning home to her first and true love. Four Doors and Other Stories sparkles with unique characters and startling images, each one walking the line between dream and reality. The twelve stories in this collection travel from the magical doors in a French teacher’s hallway to a hidden copse in a gypsy camp, to a small town where a postman who delivers love letters is always losing his cap. Four Doors and Other Stories explores the nature and the breadth of love, not only in its most recognizable forms—sacrifice, forgiveness, and longing—but in its strangest: in distance, infidelity, jealousy, and isolation. Through surprising characters and varied storytelling, A.G. Billig blurs the line between dreams and the magic of reality to paint a portrait of love in all its forms.