The If I Survive You author on the suspense of the Booker ceremony, Americans’ warped view of the Caribbean, and writing his next novel on the roadJonathan Escoffery, 43, was born in Texas and lives in Oakland, California. His debut, If I Survive You, about a second-generation Jamaican in Miami, where Escoffery grew up, was shortlisted for last year’s Booker and is currently on the shortlist of the Gordon Burn prize, announced on 7 March. The novelist Rumaan Alam has called it “a reminder of what fiction can do... It’s truly a feat that a book of short stories tackling such big stuff – family, love, violence, race – could be so damn funny.”What did it mean to be shortlisted for the Booker prize?It felt like I’d arrived in the UK for the first time, even though the book had been out for months. I’d already connected with readers outside the US because the book is partly set in Jamaica and talks about the African-Caribbean diaspora, but suddenly I was hearing from people in India and Australia. I’d watched the ceremony when Marlon James won with A Brief History of Seven Killings in 2015. I loved what that book did for Jamaica and to see it honoured in such a massive way was beautiful. I felt like that novel was capturing a history of tumultuous politics and rising crime I’d grown up hearing in a very matter of fact way from my parents: “This is what was happening in the 70s, this is why we left.” Continue reading... Continue reading at 'The Guardian'
[ The Guardian | 2024-01-27 18:00:42 UTC ]
‘A Country Doctor’ is one of the best-known and most widely studied short stories by Franz Kafka (1883-1924). This short story, which Kafka wrote during the winter of 1916-17, tells of a country doctor who makes a visit to a nearby village to tend to a sick boy, but the […] Continue reading at Interesting Literature
[ Interesting Literature | 2021-08-28 14:00:15 UTC ]
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Libia Brenda, Hannah Onoguwe, and Vandana Singh recommend two short stories and a poem that can help you think differently about climate change. Continue reading at Slate
[ Slate | 2021-08-27 13:00:00 UTC ]
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Though his novels and short stories — published over six decades, beginning in 1934 — are set in an older, more decorous America, he grapples with themes that feel shockingly contemporary. Continue reading at The New York Times
[ The New York Times | 2021-08-23 17:02:39 UTC ]
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The 2020 Tokyo Games will be defined by many things—the anachronism of its title, the risk of superspreading, the welcome absence of Matt Lauer—but, hopefully, these Olympics will also be remembered for bringing mental health to the forefront of popular discourse. Simone Biles’ “twisties.”... Continue reading at Electric Literature
[ Electric Literature | 2021-08-10 11:00:00 UTC ]
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Seeking out the best new Black, Asian and minority ethnic writers, this year’s finalists range across continents to show ‘the best of what stories can do’The fallout from civil war invades the London home of a high-flying Sri Lankan couple. An elderly Jamaican woman faces up bravely to the... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2021-07-29 11:00:30 UTC ]
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The longlist for the Booker Prize has been announced, including four American authors. The prize is worth £50,000. A shortlist of six will be announced on September 14, and the winner on November 2. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2021-07-27 04:00:00 UTC ]
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How Richard Lange went from literary short stories to crime fiction and his new gothic horror tale, 'Rovers,' about a '70s vampire biker gang. Continue reading at Los Angeles Times
[ Los Angeles Times | 2021-07-26 13:00:38 UTC ]
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Short stories, to me, are sparked by desire. I don’t mean they’re all love stories, though they certainly can be. I mean they are collisions or conflagrations, small or spectacular traffic accidents in which the desires of one person bump up against the impossible—whether in the form of some... Continue reading at Electric Literature
[ Electric Literature | 2021-07-26 11:00:00 UTC ]
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Graeme Macrae Burnet was picked out by the literary spotlight when his second novel, His Bloody Project, was shortlisted for the Booker Prize in 2016. Published by small indie Saraband, it tells of a brutal triple murder in the remote Scottish Highlands in 1869 via witness statements, a memoir... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2021-07-16 17:48:55 UTC ]
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It can be too easy to write villains— people stunted and incapable of love or compassion—when we write about opponents of our politics, especially in short stories, which have so much less space to detail nuance. Sometimes writing about villains and pointing the finger is necessary in a world... Continue reading at Electric Literature
[ Electric Literature | 2021-07-16 11:00:00 UTC ]
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A debut and a long-honored veteran of short stories take the 2021 top honors provided by the Washington-based PEN/Faulkner Foundation. The post Two PEN/Faulkner Foundation Award Winners: Deesha Philyaw and Charles Baxter appeared first on Publishing Perspectives. Continue reading at Publishing Perspectives
[ Publishing Perspectives | 2021-07-02 18:54:49 UTC ]
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Lit Lists Earlier this spring, the editors of WLT invited twenty-one writers to nominate a single book, published since the year 2000, that has had a major influence on their own work, along with a brief statement explaining their choice. We published... Continue reading at World Literature Today
[ World Literature Today | 2021-06-28 13:32:05 UTC ]
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The writer’s signature style of ending—a final, thrilling note—has the touch of magic that distinguishes the form at its best. Continue reading at New Yorker
[ New Yorker | 2021-06-28 10:00:00 UTC ]
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Red Arrow Studios has co-development rights with Playground for all 75 novels and 28 short stories about the French detective Jules Maigret. The post Maigret Rides Again: Playground Entertainment Options Georges Simenon’s Books appeared first on Publishing Perspectives. Continue reading at Publishing Perspectives
[ Publishing Perspectives | 2021-06-25 18:59:14 UTC ]
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At the Rumpus, Xuan Juliana Wang discusses the art of the short story in a round table that includes Kimberly King Parsons, Dantiel W. Moniz, Mary South, and Ashley Wurzbacher. The panel shares their thoughts on crafting a collection, along with what draws them to short stories in the first... Continue reading at The Millions
[ The Millions | 2021-06-24 20:30:14 UTC ]
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‘The Circular Ruins’, first published in 1940, is one of the most richly symbolic short stories by the Argentinian writer Jorge Luis Borges. One of his most powerful and suggestive explorations of the nature of reality and dreams, ‘The Circular Ruins’ can variously be interpreted as a story... Continue reading at Interesting Literature
[ Interesting Literature | 2021-06-05 14:00:43 UTC ]
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‘The Dead’ is the most critically acclaimed and widely studied story in James Joyce’s Dubliners, a collection of 15 short stories written by James Joyce and published in 1914. As we’ve remarked before, Dubliners is now regarded as one of the landmark texts of modernist literature, but initially... Continue reading at Interesting Literature
[ Interesting Literature | 2021-05-29 14:00:07 UTC ]
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‘The Lost Decade’ is one of the shortest works by F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896-1940), the American author best-known for The Great Gatsby. Published in Esquire magazine in December 1939, just one year before Fitzgerald died, ‘The Lost Decade’ is one of his most powerful short stories to deal with... Continue reading at Interesting Literature
[ Interesting Literature | 2021-04-17 14:00:20 UTC ]
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Japanese writer Haruki Murakami offers a collection of imaginative short stories with skewed elements that his many fans are sure to applaud. Continue reading at The Christian Science Monitor
[ The Christian Science Monitor | 2021-04-06 22:11:04 UTC ]
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The Folio Society‘s latest publication is a massive edition of all 118 of Philip K. Dick’s short stories, presented in this shockingly bright four-volume set. Their edition of The Complete Short Stories was designed by independent studio La Boca and includes original artworks commissioned from... Continue reading at Literrary Hub
[ Literrary Hub | 2021-04-06 18:04:35 UTC ]
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