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 ]
The Little Mermaid sacrifices her tail for a human soul. The Navajo Changing Woman grows old and is reborn with the seasons. The nymph Daphne becomes a tree to escape lovesick Apollo. Women transform because we are hungry. We transform because we’re restless, and because we’re dangerous. Women... Continue reading at Electric Literature
[ Electric Literature | 2020-08-28 11:00:00 UTC ]
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UCLan Publishing's Hazel Holmes – who is part of the Rising Stars Class of 2020 and the founder of the Northern YA Literary Festival – shares her top tips for setting up your own event. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2020-08-26 22:02:58 UTC ]
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From The New Yorker’s archive: short stories by Zadie Smith, Jennifer Egan, and Stephen King. Continue reading at New Yorker
[ New Yorker | 2020-08-16 10:00:00 UTC ]
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The most iconic short stories in the English language, as determined by that “weird and wiggly” hive-mind, the American cultural consciousness. | Lit Hub Jill Filipovic on how Boomers—“the generation with the least stable marriages in American history”—changed family life forever. | Lit Hub... Continue reading at Literrary Hub
[ Literrary Hub | 2020-08-13 10:30:25 UTC ]
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Last year, I put together this list of the most iconic poems in the English language; it’s high time to do the same for short stories. But before we go any further, you may be asking: What does “iconic” mean in this context? Can a short story really be iconic in the way of a […] Continue reading at Literrary Hub
[ Literrary Hub | 2020-08-13 08:50:36 UTC ]
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A Chicago brewery is partnering with Hat and Beard Press to cross-promote craft beer and a new collection of short stories by Sam Weller by brewing an Imperial stout with a label that replicates the cover of 'Dark Black.' Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2020-08-03 04:00:00 UTC ]
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At Lit Hub, David Karashima asked five Japanese writers, including Yoko Ogawa and Masatsugu Ono, to discuss their favorite short stories by Haruki Murakami. Mieko Kawakami, author of Breasts and Eggs, praises the story on loneliness and lost, “Tony Takitani.” “I think of Murakami as an athlete,”... Continue reading at The Millions
[ The Millions | 2020-07-22 20:30:36 UTC ]
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Bonnier Books UK is releasing 500 Words: Black Lives Matter, a book featuring short stories children have submitted to a Chris Evans-devised Virgin Radio competition this month. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2020-07-16 10:43:26 UTC ]
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What happens when you hand over the reins of a literary festival to the hosts of the popular feminist podcast Call Your Girlfriend? You get By The Books: A Collection of Rising Voices, a highly diverse online lit fest. By The Books starts today and is curated by Ann Friedman and Aminatou... Continue reading at AdWeek
[ AdWeek | 2020-07-06 20:50:30 UTC ]
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Faber is to publish a collection of short stories by John Lanchester this autumn. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2020-06-18 08:59:04 UTC ]
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Short stories by contemporary Italian writers are hard to come across and almost none of them make it across the Atlantic. Booksellers and publishers seem to stay away from them because—what’s new?—they sell less, as they apparently lack “the immersive factor.” However, readers in the twentieth... Continue reading at Literrary Hub
[ Literrary Hub | 2020-06-16 08:48:49 UTC ]
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The coronavirus pandemic pushes another literary festival into the digital realm, and Turkey's program expects to trump others as a tri-lingual event. The post Istanbul’s ‘Sunflower’ ITEF Goes Digital – With Translation Provided appeared first on Publishing Perspectives. Continue reading at Publishing Perspectives
[ Publishing Perspectives | 2020-06-15 04:10:08 UTC ]
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‘The Man of the Crowd’ is one of the shorter short stories written by Edgar Allan Poe (who pioneered the short story form when it was still an emerging force in nineteenth-century magazines and periodicals). Written in 1840, the story is deliciously enigmatic and, in some ways, prefigures later... Continue reading at Interesting Literature
[ Interesting Literature | 2020-06-02 14:00:22 UTC ]
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It kept happening. On Twitter, on Facebook, in your WhatsApp chats. The bookish people you know, the introverts, declaring that lockdown would give them more time to read. Or the people who know you, and know that you might be bookish, declaring that you’d got a head start on them in terms of... Continue reading at British Council global
[ British Council global | 2020-05-29 15:15:00 UTC ]
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At the beginning of 2020, well before my debut novel was published, I was invited to an evening soiree in Glasgow’s Mitchell Library – a kind of preview event for authors performing at a well-known literary festival. I changed quickly in the toilet at the car salesroom I worked in and navigated... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2020-05-15 16:53:37 UTC ]
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It’s a long-standing joke in lockdown now – among those of us quarantined, self-isolating, or lucky enough to keep working from home – that we don’t know which day it is. Or even which week. And did I shower this morning, or was it yesterday? Our immediate surroundings have been so similar for... Continue reading at British Council global
[ British Council global | 2020-05-15 14:46:20 UTC ]
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THREE MUSLIM GIRLS — two sisters and their cousin — stood in the sunshine on the grounds of the Diggi Palace Hotel in Jaipur, where the world’s largest literary festival took place over five days in late January. All around them, young people streamed into the sprawling compound, before a... Continue reading at Los Angeles Review of Books
[ Los Angeles Review of Books | 2020-05-14 17:00:42 UTC ]
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Book events worldwide are on hold, but Afrolit Sans Frontieres uses social media to host frank discussions around writing, creativity, sex and violence. Continue reading at The New York Times
[ The New York Times | 2020-05-14 14:18:46 UTC ]
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The pandemic has thrown publishing and booksellers into crisis – and left customers struggling to obtain books when they most want them. But some in the industry sense an opportunity to drag it into the 21st centuryOn 18 March, Emma Corfield-Walters received the news that for the second year... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2020-05-10 08:00:20 UTC ]
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Whether delving into chunky historical narratives or listening to short story podcasts, we’ve all been approaching reading differently during lockdown. Our reading habits can take us back in time, allow us to examine our present, or give us hope for the future. In time for the May bank holiday... Continue reading at British Council global
[ British Council global | 2020-05-07 13:58:54 UTC ]
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