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 ]
Spanning dreamy teenagers to furious parents, violence to kindness, each of the ten short stories in Five Tuesdays in Winter is rendered with Lily King’s signature longing and wit. We are all learning to carry our grief, this collection argues, yet still hoping to scrape together a few more... Continue reading at Electric Literature
[ Electric Literature | 2021-12-21 12:00:00 UTC ]
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The best stories by the American writer Ernest Hemingway (1899-1961) are written in spare, clear prose, using short sentences and plain dialogue. This is a trademark feature of Hemingway’s style in his short stories and novels. But what are Hemingway’s very best stories? He wrote dozens of short... Continue reading at Interesting Literature
[ Interesting Literature | 2021-12-15 15:00:48 UTC ]
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More than 50 signatories, including Bonnier Books UK c.e.o. Perminder Mann and the Society of Authors, have urged literary festival organisers to keep festivals hybrid as part of a new campaign. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2021-12-10 07:38:14 UTC ]
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Novelists and short-story writers have created some classic narratives about man’s best friend, the dog. But what are the very best stories and novels about dogs? Where should we begin in assessing the classic, canonical literature that features dogs? From Homer’s Odyssey onwards – where the... Continue reading at Interesting Literature
[ Interesting Literature | 2021-12-03 15:00:29 UTC ]
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Interviews Photo by Diane Picchiottino / Unsplash That Famous Abyss (Wunderkammer, 2020) is a book of exclusive interviews with Enrique Vila-Matas by cultural journalist Anna María Iglesia, covering such themes as why write, the places of... Continue reading at World Literature Today
[ World Literature Today | 2021-11-29 21:46:44 UTC ]
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Inspired by another Rioter's bookish rituals, I'm trying my own. I wake up earlier than usual to enjoy a slow morning reading short stories. Continue reading at Book Riot
[ Book Riot | 2021-11-18 11:36:00 UTC ]
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Interviews Khadija Abdalla Bajaber’s astonishing debut novel, The House of Rust, winner of the inaugural Graywolf Press Africa Prize, arrived in October as if on a magical wave, imbued with an assortment of creatures—human and animal, real and... Continue reading at World Literature Today
[ World Literature Today | 2021-11-15 21:42:08 UTC ]
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The comic novelist takes aim at the industry’s elitism, but his story of a farcical literary festival is dated – and overly focused on Will SelfFunny ha-ha is tricky. For every reader who cackles with laughter at an author writing “this person was making plans to micturate upon one’s pommes... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2021-11-12 09:00:32 UTC ]
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Take a kaleidoscope, peer inside its lens and turn the dial: the jeweled-mosaic pattern within deforms and reforms anew. Asako Serizawa mirrored her debut short story collection Inheritors after this complex design. Out of chronological sequence, the thirteen short stories locate twelve related... Continue reading at Electric Literature
[ Electric Literature | 2021-11-11 12:00:00 UTC ]
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These free short stories by your favorite authors will entice and enchant you with bookkeeping aliens, ant writing, and sentient drones. Continue reading at Book Riot
[ Book Riot | 2021-11-10 11:34:00 UTC ]
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The 2021 shortlists have been revealed for the Staunch Prize’s unpublished flash fiction and short stories without violence to women, while the original book prize is on hold until 2022. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2021-11-01 12:22:21 UTC ]
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Under new leadership experienced in TV and film, Condé Nast’s entertainment arm is working more closely with its publications to develop articles and short stories into shows and movies. The post How Agnes Chu and Helen Estabrook are breaking Condé Nast Entertainment further into Hollywood... Continue reading at Digiday
[ Digiday | 2021-10-26 04:01:00 UTC ]
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What are the best places to begin exploring the wonderful world of science fiction? Some of the classic novels of the genre, from Frank Herbert’s Dune to Asimov’s Foundation series (which eventually stretched to seven volumes), might appear daunting because of their sheer size and scope. Below,... Continue reading at Interesting Literature
[ Interesting Literature | 2021-10-20 14:00:25 UTC ]
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Quercus imprint MacLehose Press has acquired My Pen is the Wing of a Bird: New Fiction by Afghan Women, an anthology of contemporary women's short stories with an introduction by BBC chief international correspondent Lyse Doucet. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2021-10-19 02:58:08 UTC ]
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I think a lot of us believe in ghosts. In fact, many of us are likely haunted by them. I’m talking about emotional ghosts, of course. My debut short story collection, Those Fantastic Lives: And Other Strange Stories, has a particular fascination with ghosts. In my stories, there are certainly... Continue reading at Electric Literature
[ Electric Literature | 2021-10-14 11:00:00 UTC ]
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Book Reviews Photo by andy lapham / Flickr Whether he is recounting his nighttime drive with a late colleague and poet around the beltway of the pulsing and vibrant São Paulo—a city so full of people and culture that it seems to have its own... Continue reading at World Literature Today
[ World Literature Today | 2021-10-11 20:56:08 UTC ]
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His novels and short stories are populated with refugees from war, colonialism and historical injustice Continue reading at The Economist
[ The Economist | 2021-10-07 16:46:03 UTC ]
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Jocelyn Nicole Johnson, a schoolteacher-turned-author, talks about her short story collection, 'My Monticello,' race, Charlottesville and Jan. 6. Continue reading at Los Angeles Times
[ Los Angeles Times | 2021-10-05 14:00:36 UTC ]
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From the magazine’s archive: a selection of short stories and nonfiction from the magazine that have been adapted into films. Continue reading at New Yorker
[ New Yorker | 2021-09-26 10:00:00 UTC ]
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One very short story – often attributed to Ernest Hemingway but actually the work of another writer – is just six words long: ‘For sale: baby shoes, never worn’. And some of the greatest fiction-writers of the last two centuries have written memorable short stories which stretch to little more […] Continue reading at Interesting Literature
[ Interesting Literature | 2021-09-25 14:00:49 UTC ]
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