Book Reviews Indrajit Bose The author at the Zakir Hussain Delhi College during the Bengali Literary Festival 2018 / Photo courtesy of bitanchakraborty.com Simplicity and quiet elegance never fail to impress us. The effect of a good short story often is like a fugue or an adagio in a musical composition, creating impressions fugitifs, in the best manner of the impressionists, sketching in a mood or elaborating on a motif or theme. Bitan Chakraborty’s The Mark (Shambhabi Imprint, 2020) is unquestionably a collection of short stories revolving around the everyday lives of ordinary characters that leaves an impression of serious engagement with the contemporary Indian milieu and is also aesthetically pleasing. Chakraborty is already an established author of the novel; his foray into the short story adds a further dimension to his existing repertoire. A writer must “convincingly create an illusory world if he is to captivate his readers,” Chakraborty has said, and he appears to have lived up to his aesthetic or writerly principles in The Mark. Peripheral and marginal lives lived by characters grappling with the challenging socioeconomic realities of our times, mediated with narratorial control and poise—these are what make the stories in The Mark a testament to the craft of a storyteller and short fiction writer par excellence. The stories in the collection revolve around everyday life and broad human themes—the despair and... Continue reading at 'World Literature Today'
[ World Literature Today | 2020-04-21 13:18:37 UTC ]
Entering its fourth decade, the Reykjavik festival uses its 'Absent Author' series to feature the jailed Sansal. The post In Iceland: A Focus on Boualem Sansal at Reykjavik International Literary Festival appeared first on Publishing Perspectives. Continue reading at Publishing Perspectives
[ Publishing Perspectives | 2025-05-29 05:04:00 UTC ]
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The following story was chosen by Ottessa Moshfegh as the winner of the 2025 Stella Kupferberg Memorial Short Story Prize. The prize is awarded annually by Selected Shorts and a guest author judge. This story will be performed by an actor this spring. To hear more great short stories performed... Continue reading at Electric Literature
[ Electric Literature | 2025-05-28 11:10:00 UTC ]
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The author and activist, who was subject to a fatwa in 2000, has won the prestigious prize for translated fiction for her short stories about the lives of Muslim women. She and her translator Deepa Bhasthi explain how Heart Lamp’s themes ‘are universal’• ‘Radical translation’ of Heart Lamp by... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2025-05-23 12:00:30 UTC ]
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The Portland, Ore., metro area is home to more than 60 independent bookstores of all shapes and sizes. Eleven indies will welcome Children’s Institute’s full- and half-day bus tours on June 12, while a whopping 66 indies are listed on the website of Portland Book Week, a June 6–15 literary... Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2025-05-23 04:00:00 UTC ]
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Seven queer African creative works you should know about, from short stories to music videos. Continue reading at The Conversation
[ The Conversation | 2025-05-15 13:05:42 UTC ]
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The Best American Series is a literary institution. But just in case you’re stumbling upon it for the first time: Each book in the annual series showcases of best short fiction and nonfiction in a given year, from short stories to essays, science and nature writing, to food writing. Each... Continue reading at Literrary Hub
[ Literrary Hub | 2025-05-14 13:00:31 UTC ]
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My last Lit Hub conversation with Karen E. Bender was in 2018, just before her collection The New Order was published. She mentioned that she read John Cheever’s short stories in graduate school: “Cheever’s sentences just made my brain light up. He packs more into a paragraph—about love,... Continue reading at Literrary Hub
[ Literrary Hub | 2025-05-13 08:58:28 UTC ]
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In this interview, author Clea Young discusses the difference in inspiration between a novel and short stories with her new collection, Welcome to the Neighbourhood. The post Clea Young: Allow Yourself Fallow Periods To Recharge appeared first on Writer's Digest. Continue reading at Writer's Digest
[ Writer's Digest | 2025-05-07 12:00:00 UTC ]
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Mavis Gallant’s short stories are about people, especially women, who prefer to live on the social margins. I cherish one of them most of all. Continue reading at The Atlantic
[ The Atlantic | 2025-05-03 13:00:00 UTC ]
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One of Iceland’s top literary agents is working to keep the Reykjavík International Literary Festival, which she helps produce, at the forefront of the international literary scene. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2025-05-02 04:00:00 UTC ]
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A powerhouse of the genre, she published around 100 short stories and 17 novels, one of which was adapted into the acclaimed film “The Lady Vanishes.” Continue reading at The New York Times
[ The New York Times | 2025-04-17 22:03:17 UTC ]
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April’s 10 best books range from short stories set in LA to a climate-change novel to a reappraisal of the American Revolution and its effects on other countries. Continue reading at The Christian Science Monitor
[ The Christian Science Monitor | 2025-04-11 10:00:14 UTC ]
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When I was nine years old my mother temporarily moved from our home in Los Angeles to New York City for a job in private banking. The family lore is that I wrote her letters, including short stories about a family of hamsters. I don’t remember what I was feeling then or why I did […] Continue reading at Literrary Hub
[ Literrary Hub | 2025-03-25 08:58:26 UTC ]
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New Harper Lee short stories coming this fall, a day in the life of an audiobook narrator, the It Books of March, and more news. Continue reading at Book Riot
[ Book Riot | 2025-03-09 15:00:00 UTC ]
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Eight unpublished stories by the To Kill a Mockingbird author will be issued later this year as The Land of Sweet ForeverNever-before-seen short stories by Harper Lee will be published later this year, it has been announced.Eight short stories written before the author started the novel that... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2025-03-04 16:09:02 UTC ]
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