Our annual pick of the most exciting debut fiction has previously tipped Sally Rooney and Louise Kennedy, Tom Crewe and Douglas Stuart. Here the class of 2024 tell us their storiesEach year since 2014, the Observer New Review’s writers and editors have read scores of forthcoming debut novels from authors based in the UK and Ireland in order to spotlight the best; here’s our pick of 2024. As ever, our only guide was the quality of the books in front of us. This year’s list includes industry-tipped titles snapped up by big-spending publishers, but also a canny acquisition from a small independent press. There’s a third book from someone already widely celebrated as a writer of short stories, and even a debut from an actual Observer journalist. These are simply the books we rated most – and we think you’ll love them too.In previous years, we led you to Douglas Stuart’s Booker-winning Shuggie Bain, Gail Honeyman’s global bestseller Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine and Sheena Patel’s cult indie hit I’m a Fan. Last year’s picks continue to hoover up honours. Tom Crewe’s The New Life won the Orwell prize for fiction, while Michael Magee (Close to Home) won the Rooney prize, awarded to an outstanding Irish writer under 40. Both writers are on the shortlist for this month’s Nero debut fiction prize, along with Stephen Buoro, another of our 2023 picks.I’d take the washing up shifts no one else wanted so I could be at the back, jotting things downThere’s violence, but it’s about... Continue reading at 'The Guardian'
[ The Guardian | 2024-01-14 07:00:20 UTC ]
By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University) In a short life beset by ill health, the American writer Flannery O’Connor (1925-64) wrote two novels, Wise Blood (1952) and The Violent Bear It Away (1960). But it is for her short stories, many of which were collected in just two volumes, that […] Continue reading at Interesting Literature
[ Interesting Literature | 2023-03-14 18:00:54 UTC ]
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These linked short stories are a great way to discover an author's style, and a thrill for folks who love a good Easter egg. Continue reading at Book Riot
[ Book Riot | 2023-03-13 10:33:00 UTC ]
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If you want a little shot of sadness, here are some of the best sad short stories to get the emotions flowing in no time! Continue reading at Book Riot
[ Book Riot | 2023-03-08 11:36:00 UTC ]
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If the literary landscape of the early twentieth century, at least when it comes to short stories, is dominated by Anglophone writers like Katherine Mansfield, James Joyce, and Virginia Woolf, then the mid-twentieth century arguably belongs to the Latin American writers who helped to move the... Continue reading at Interesting Literature
[ Interesting Literature | 2023-03-05 18:00:38 UTC ]
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I don’t know if we deserve Rebecca Makkai, but we certainly need her. The author of four novels and a short story collection, she’s been bringing range, depth, and humor to the literary world for at least fifteen years. She’s a regular among the pages of Best American Short Stories and was a... Continue reading at Electric Literature
[ Electric Literature | 2023-03-02 12:00:00 UTC ]
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Twenty stories written under a pseudonym and never before attributed to Pratchett, who died in 2015, will be released this year by TransworldA collection of newly rediscovered short stories by Terry Pratchett, originally written under a pseudonym, are to be published later this year.The 20 tales... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2023-02-27 14:52:08 UTC ]
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I'm recommending eight Peruvian books in translation, from surrealist short stories to creative memoir to bloody historical fiction. Continue reading at Book Riot
[ Book Riot | 2023-02-22 11:33:00 UTC ]
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What is it about campus novels that makes us love them so? The campus has inspired many novelists over the years: Michael Chabon, Kazuo Ishiguro, Curtis Sittenfeld, Elif Batuman, Nabokov, to name just a few. Readers love these stories, too; “the campus novel” has become its own literary... Continue reading at Literrary Hub
[ Literrary Hub | 2023-02-14 09:53:34 UTC ]
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‘A White Heron’ is one of the best-known short stories by the American writer Sarah Orne Jewett (1849-1909). Published in 1886 in the collection A White Heron and Other Stories, the story is about a young girl who is approached by a hunter who offers her money if she will […] Continue reading at Interesting Literature
[ Interesting Literature | 2023-02-08 18:00:40 UTC ]
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‘Women’ is a 1970 poem by Alice Walker (born 1944), one of the best-known African American writers of the second half of the twentieth century. Although she is probably most famous for her 1982 novel The Color Purple, Walker has written short stories and numerous other novels. She also started […] Continue reading at Interesting Literature
[ Interesting Literature | 2023-02-08 15:00:50 UTC ]
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‘A Rose for Emily’ is one of the most widely studied American short stories of the twentieth century, but the subtle narrative style and William Faulkner’s use of symbolism are often difficult to interpret. Starting with the ‘rose’ in the story’s title, the text is rich with symbols whose... Continue reading at Interesting Literature
[ Interesting Literature | 2023-02-03 18:00:07 UTC ]
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OpenAI’s ChatGPT’s AI chatbot is so good, too many people are using it, crushing its servers. So the company is debuting a paid ChatGPT Plus service, which will launch in the coming weeks. ChatGPT will cost $20 per month, but don’t despair. OpenAI says that it still plans to offer a... Continue reading at PC World
[ PC World | 2023-02-01 21:57:26 UTC ]
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‘Fish Cheeks’ is a short autobiographical narrative by the American writer Amy Tan (born 1952). Tan is probably best-known for The Joy Luck Club, her 1989 novel containing a series of interwoven short stories told by a number of Chinese-American women who are members of the titular club; but... Continue reading at Interesting Literature
[ Interesting Literature | 2023-01-29 15:00:27 UTC ]
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The following first appeared in Lit Hub’s The Craft of Writing newsletter—sign up here. William Trevor famously described the short story as “the art of the glimpse,” and compression is generally a virtue. But the most engaging and compelling short stories and novels are not necessarily the... Continue reading at Literrary Hub
[ Literrary Hub | 2023-01-27 09:52:28 UTC ]
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Aleksandar Hemon is the author of The Lazarus Project, which was a finalist for the 2008 National Book Award and the National Book Critics Circle Award, and three books of short stories: The Question of Bruno; Nowhere Man, which was also a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award;... Continue reading at Literrary Hub
[ Literrary Hub | 2023-01-24 09:53:24 UTC ]
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‘Everyday Use’ is one of the most popular and widely studied short stories by Alice Walker. It was first published in Harper’s Magazine in 1973 before being collected in Walker’s short-story collection In Love and Trouble. Walker uses ‘Everyday Use’ to explore different attitudes towards Black... Continue reading at Interesting Literature
[ Interesting Literature | 2023-01-23 15:00:18 UTC ]
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‘Cathedral’ is perhaps the most widely studied of all the short stories of Raymond Carver (1938-88). The story is narrated by a man whose wife has invited her friend, a blind man named Robert, to come and stay with them. Although he is initially uncomfortable and even scathing about their […] Continue reading at Interesting Literature
[ Interesting Literature | 2023-01-22 15:00:57 UTC ]
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Having written and taught short stories for many years, I’ve become increasingly interested in writers who are pushing the edge of how “story” is defined. While “flash fiction” and “micro fiction” are buzzy terms, writing extremely short pieces is nothing new—as I tell my students, Poe did it,... Continue reading at Literrary Hub
[ Literrary Hub | 2023-01-20 09:53:22 UTC ]
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I kind of love acknowledgement pages. When I was trying to find an agent for my first novel, I would go to the local Borders (it was a lifetime ago) open to them often to discover which agents and editors novelists worked with, which MFA programs they’d attended, who their early readers were. My... Continue reading at Literrary Hub
[ Literrary Hub | 2023-01-18 09:56:43 UTC ]
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Russell Banks, who has died at age 82, carried on the legacy of great American novelists probing big themes through the small lives of heroic underdogs. Continue reading at Los Angeles Times
[ Los Angeles Times | 2023-01-09 21:54:28 UTC ]
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