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Showing 7481 - 7500 of 13497 items
By Paulina Flores. 2016
“Humiliation is a brilliant book that captures the volatility of misunderstandings, the moment when failures matter less than the need…
to share them.” —Alejandro Zambra, author of Multiple ChoiceThe nine mesmerizing stories in Humiliation, translated from the Spanish by Man Booker International Prize finalist Megan McDowell, present us with a Chile we seldom see in fiction: port cities marked by poverty and brimming with plans of rebellion; apartment buildings populated by dominant mothers and voyeuristic neighbors; library steps that lead students to literature, but also into encounters with other arts—those of seduction, self–delusion, sabotage.In these pages, a father walks through the scorching heat of Santiago’s streets with his two daughters in tow. Jobless and ashamed, he takes them into a stranger’s house, a place that will become the site of the greatest humiliation of his life. In an impoverished fishing town, four teenage boys try to allay their boredom during an endless summer by translating lyrics from the Smiths into Spanish using a stolen dictionary. Their dreams of fame and glory twist into a plan to steal musical instruments from a church, an obsession that prevents one of them from anticipating a devastating ending. Meanwhile a young woman goes home with a charismatic man after finding his daughter wandering lost in a public place. She soon discovers, like so many characters in this book, that fortuitous encounters can be deceptions in disguise.Themes of pride, shame, and disgrace—small and large, personal and public—tie the stories in this collection together. Humiliation becomes revelation as we watch Paulina Flores’s characters move from an age of innocence into a world of conflicting sensations.By Marisa Matarazzo. 2010
Two lovers accidentally create a love potion while making a batch of Jell-O. An apartment is filled with water as…
an act of gravity-defying devotion to an acrobat. At turns blissful, absurd, sexy, and devastating, Marisa Matarazzo's stories don't just push the boundaries of love-they show how very boundless it is. These interconnected shorts take love to a new level-another world, where a sex fever can sweep a town and where sex acts are performed tied to the raised mast of a sailboat. Falling into love, swimming, and drowning in it, the characters often exist in places where land and water collide and morph. A girl without hands is rescued from the sea by an oil-rig worker. A boy transplants a fish into the body of a menacing neighbor. A woman on the rebound has an unexpected encounter with an otherworldly water engineer. Fusing magical realism and fantasy with the heart of the here and now, Matarazzo has established a singular style. As she shifts effortlessly among startling plotlines and peculiar characters, she celebrates the fluid sorcery of love-in its ardor, its ugliness, all of its uncanny and magnificent manifestations, proclaiming love the most wondrous magic of all.By Kelly Link, Marie-Helene Bertino, Nina McConigley. 2017
THE INAUGURAL ANTHOLOGY OF LITERATURE'S MOST PROMISING NEW VOICES"A welcome addition to the run of established short story annuals, promising…
good work to come." —Kirkus ReviewsMany writers who are household names today got their start when an editor encountered their work for the first time and took a chance. This book celebrates twelve such moments of discovery. The first volume of an annual anthology, launched alongside PEN's new Robert J. Dau Short Story Prize for Emerging Writers, it recognizes writers who have had outstanding fiction debuts in a print or online literary magazine.The winning stories collected here—selected this year by judges Marie–Helene Bertino, Kelly Link, and Nina McConigley—take place in South Carolina and in South Korea, on a farm in the eighteenth century and among the cubicles of a computer– engineering firm in the present day. They narrate age–old themes with current urgency: migration, memory, technology, language, love, ecology, identity, family. Each work comes with an introduction by the editor who originally published it, explaining why he or she chose it. The commentaries provide insight into a process that often remains opaque to readers and students of writing, and showcase the vital work literary magazines do to nurture contemporary literature's new voices.By Richard Bausch. 2017
A powerful coda to Richard Bausch&’s &“brilliant&” (The New York Times Book Review) World War II novel, Peace, the basis…
for the film Recon. Originally published in Living in the Weather of the World, this poignant short story picks up the tale of American GI Robert Marson, who was improbably saved from death by a German solider, Eugene Schmidt. Seventy-two years later, the two men are poised to reunite in Washington, D.C. Although they kept in touch after the war, it has been decades since their last meeting, a meeting which reshaped their relationship, and not for the better. Now old men with children and grandchildren, Marson and Schmidt brace themselves to speak one last time, with their families—and the world—watching. A story of nostalgia and regret, of memories forgotten and not, and of how the past never really leaves us, no matter what we may hope, Still Here, Still There is the dazzling final chapter to one of Richard Bausch&’s most revered works, and a tribute to the enduring legacy of the bravery of the men who fought in the Second World War.By Anosh Irani. 2019
Here are seven superb, subtle, surprising stories that show, through a prism of unforgettable characters, what it means to live…
between two worlds: India and Canada.Anosh Irani, the masterful, bestselling author of The Parcel and The Song of Kahunsha, knows of what he writes: Twenty years ago, to the mystification of family and friends, Irani left India for Vancouver, Canada, a city and a country completely foreign to him. His plan was both grand and impractical: he would reinvent himself as a writer. Miraculously, he did just that, publishing critically acclaimed novels and plays set in his beloved hometown of Mumbai. But this uprooting did not come without a steep price--one that Irani for the first time directly explores in this book.In these stunning stories and one "half truth" (a semi-fictional meditation on the experience of being an immigrant) we meet a swimming instructor determined to reenact John Cheever's iconic short story "The Swimmer" in the pools of Mumbai; a famous Indian chef who breaks down on a New York talk show; a gangster's wife who believes a penguin at the Mumbai zoo is the reincarnation of her lost child; an illegal immigrant in Vancouver who plays a fateful game of cricket; and a kindly sweets-shop owner whose hope for a new life in Canada leads to a terrible choice. The book starts and ends with a gorgeous, emotionally raw "translation" to the page of the author's own life between worlds, blurring the line between fiction and fact. Translated from the Gibberish confirms Anosh Irani as a unique, inventive, vitally important voice in contemporary fiction.By Craig Davidson. 2020
From the bestselling author of The Saturday Night Ghost Club and Canada Reads-finalist Precious Cargo comes this supremely satisfying collection…
of stories.Reminiscent of Stephen King's brilliantly cinematic short stories that went on to inspire films such as The Shawshank Redemption and Stand by Me, here's a collection crackling with Craig Davidson's superb craft and kinetic energy: in the visceral, crystalline, steel-tipped prose; in the psychological perspicacity; and in the endearing humour.Set in in the Niagara Falls of Davidson's imagination known as "Cataract City," the superb stories of Cascade shine a shimmering light on this slightly seedy, slightly magical, slightly haunted place. The six gems in this collection each illuminate familial relationships in a singular way: A mother and her infant son fight to survive a car-crash in a remote wintry landscape outside of town. Fraternal twins at a juvenile detention center reach a dangerous crisis point in their entwined lives. A pregnant social worker grapples with the prospect of parenthood as a custody case takes a dire turn. A hard-boiled ex-firefighter goes after a serial arsonist with a flair for the theatrical even as his own troubled sister is drawn towards the flames. These are just some of the unforgettable characters animating this stellar collection of tales--Davidson's first in 15 years, since Rust and Bone, which inspired a Golden Globe-nominated film.By Madeleine Thien. 2018
Winner of the Ethel Wilson Fiction Prize and the City of Vancouver Book Award, and a Regional Finalist for the…
Commonwealth Writers Prize for Best First BookLonging, familiarity, and hope suffuse these stories as they mine the charged territory of relationships – subtly weaving in conflicts between generations and cultures. Madeleine Thien’s characters in some way want to make amends, to understand the events that have shaped their lives. A young woman searches back in time for the pivotal moment when her family lost faith in itself. Two sisters keep a vigil outside their former house, hoping their long-absent mother will appear one last time. A wife helps her husband grieve for the woman he has loved since childhood. A daughter remembers the simple ritual she once shared with her father and the moment when her unconditional love for him was called into question. Compassionate and revealing, delicate and wise, these stories chart the uneven progress of love and lay bare the heartbreaking truths at the core of our closest bonds.By Mary Robison. 2019
"Mary Robison's short stories are short, subtle, and substantial . . . Her ironic sense of detail bursts from every…
sentence." —Vogue An Amateur's Guide to the Night stands as a perfect example of Mary Robison's beloved narrative style: purposeful, clipped, and devastating in its restraint. Reflecting on the life of disaffected youth, these stories speculate on how they often manage to remain deferent towards the rest of society—and document how spectacularly they often fail. "These thirteen stories are glimpses from a moving train into lit parlors, dinettes, bedrooms and dens . . . Think of Robison as the engineer, blowing the whistle, calling the stops and starts; invisible when you want to ask her why we're stalled here in the middle of nowhere, between stations, jobs, relationships and decisions." —Los Angeles TimesBy David Mcglynn. 2008
This debut collection received critical acclaim and is now available for the first time in trade paper. The stories in…
The End of the Straight and Narrow take on the inner lives of the zealous, their passions and desires, and the ways religious faith is both the compass for navigating daily life and the force that makes ordinary life impossible.In "Landslide," an aspiring evangelist witnesses the miraculous event that launches his career, but fails to notice the mental decline of his college roommate. In "Moonland on Fire," a divorced, born-again father, his new wife, and his estranged teenage son battle to save their dilapidated home from a massive fire. In "Deep in the Heart" a dying boy reveals his final wish to his estranged parents: he wants to kill a deer. In "Seventeen One-Hundredths of a Second" an aging virgin is drawn into a precarious friendship. The five linked stories that comprise the collection's latter half focus on a woman blinded suddenly while giving birth, who years later begins a process of disappearing that confuses her family and leads to ultimately violent and disintegrating ends.Ranging from the coastal highways of Southern California, to the mountains above Salt Lake City, to the swampy bayous and pine forests surrounding Houston, Texas, the stories often take place against the backdrop of disaster-a landslide, a fire, a drowning, a hurricane-as the characters question whether faith illuminates the world or leaves them isolated within it.By Agatha Christie. 2016
This collection of classic short mysteries by the author of The Mousetrap will have you asking, &“Whodunit, howdunit, and whydunit?&”At…
the same time every day, Jack&’s morning golf routine is interrupted by the sound of a woman calling for help. Though the cry is clearly coming from a nearby cottage, the lady who lives there has no distress to report—until she starts having nightmares about a mysterious woman and a blue Chinese vase. Could the cottage be haunted? Or is Jack losing his mind? His attempts to find out will lead him down a dangerous path. A taut psychological thriller, &“The Mystery of the Blue Jar&” is quintessential Agatha Christie. This volume presents that story alongside other short works by the British master of mystery and suspense.By David Szalay. 2019
From the acclaimed, Man Booker Prize-shortlisted author of All That Man Is, a stunning, virtuosic novel about twelve people, mostly…
strangers, and the surprising ripple effect each one has on the life of the next as they cross paths while in transit around the world.A woman strikes up a conversation with the man sitting next to her on a plane after some turbulence. He returns home to tragic news that has also impacted another stranger, a shaken pilot on his way to another continent who seeks comfort from a journalist he meets that night. Her life shifts subtly as well, before she heads to the airport on an assignment that will shift more lives in turn.In this wondrous, profoundly moving novel, Szalay's diverse protagonists circumnavigate the planet in twelve flights, from London to Madrid, from Dakar to Sao Paulo, to Toronto, to Delhi, to Doha, en route to see lovers or estranged siblings, aging parents, baby grandchildren, or nobody at all. Along the way, they experience the full range of human emotions from loneliness to love and, knowingly or otherwise, change each other in one brief, electrifying interaction after the next.Written with magic and economy and beautifully exploring the delicate, crisscrossed nature of relationships today, Turbulence is a dazzling portrait of the interconnectedness of the modern world.By Souvankham Thammavongsa. 2020
WINNER OF THE 2020 SCOTIABANK GILLER PRIZENamed one of Time Magazine's Must-Read Books of 2020 and one of the best…
books of the month by The New York Times, Salon, Vanity Fair, Bustle, The Millions, and Vogue, and featuring stories that have appeared in Harper's, Granta, The Atlantic, and The Paris Review, this revelatory book of fiction from O. Henry Award winner Souvankham Thammavongsa establishes her as an essential new voice in Canadian and world literature. Told with compassion and wry humour, these stories honour characters struggling to find their bearings far from home, even as they do the necessary "grunt work of the world."A young man painting nails at the local salon. A woman plucking feathers at a chicken processing plant. A father who packs furniture to move into homes he'll never afford. A housewife learning English from daytime soap operas. In her stunning debut book of fiction, O. Henry Award winner Souvankham Thammavongsa focuses on characters struggling to make a living, illuminating their hopes, disappointments, love affairs, acts of defiance, and above all their pursuit of a place to belong. In spare, intimate prose charged with emotional power and a sly wit, she paints an indelible portrait of watchful children, wounded men, and restless women caught between cultures, languages, and values. As one of Thammavongsa's characters says, "All we wanted was to live." And in these stories, they do--brightly, ferociously, unforgettably.A daughter becomes an unwilling accomplice in her mother's growing infatuation with country singer Randy Travis. A boxer finds an unexpected chance at redemption while working at his sister's nail salon. An older woman finds her assumptions about the limits of love unravelling when she begins a relationship with her much younger neighbour. A school bus driver must grapple with how much he's willing to give up in order to belong. And in the Commonwealth Short Story Prize-shortlisted title story, a young girl's unconditional love for her father transcends language.Unsentimental yet tender, and fiercely alive, How to Pronounce Knife announces Souvankham Thammavongsa as one of the most striking voices of her generation.By Kazuo Ishiguro. 2017
In this sublime story cycle, Kazuo Ishiguro explores love, music and the passage of time. This quintet ranges from Italian…
piazzas to the Malvern Hills, a London flat to the "hush-hush floor" of an exclusive Hollywood hotel. Along the way we meet young dreamers, café musicians and faded stars, all at some moment of reckoning. Gentle, intimate and witty, Nocturnes is underscored by a haunting theme: the struggle to restoke life’s romance, even as relationships flounder and youthful hopes recede.By Andre Alexis. 2020
A career-spanning collection of stories from the author of Fifteen Dogs, winner of the Scotiabank Giller Prize, the Rogers Writers'…
Trust Fiction Prize, and Canada Reads.Vivid, profound, moving, and with moments of sly humour, the stories in The Night Piece reveal worlds both familiar and deeply strange. Drawing from Alexis's acclaimed debut collection, Despair and Other Stories of Ottawa, and the highly original Beauty and Sadness, and including previously uncollected stories, here is the surreal and brilliant short fiction of André Alexis--one of Canada's most extraordinary writers. With an Afterword by Madeleine ThienBy Francisco Coloane. 2020
Los mejores cuentos de gran narrador del sur austral. El rescate de uno de los grandes clásicos chilenos. Coloane escribió…
toda su vida sobre la zona más austral del continente americano, sobre ese mundo abandonado, lejano y desolado, azotado por un clima feroz y en donde la lucha por la v ida se inicia cada día. Es nada menos que uno de los creadores de todo un imaginario austral que marca la literatura sudamericana. Este libro rescata sus mejores relatos. Cuentos en donde tanto su maestría para narrar como el despliegue de ese mundo en el que tanto indagó quedan ref lejados a la perfección. Un autor clásico y fundamental, rescatado en esta selección que realiza y prologa Diego Zúñiga. "La narrativa de Coloane está descolgada del mapa, como sus personajes, comulgando con una naturaleza primitiva y feroz. Los relatos parecen estar contándose alrededor del fuego con el sonido de una voz tan primigenia como el ulular del viento o el canto de las ballenas jorobadas." Rosabetty Muñoz "Coloane ha pintado con destreza la vida y los paisajes del extremo sur chileno (…) sus cuentos magallánicos le valieron el mote del Jack London chileno." Cesar Aira "Sus cuentos nombran los más desolados espacios del continente americano, cifrándolos bajo una concepción cósmica (…) Dan cuenta de un mundo olvidado, de un sur chileno tan real que bordea los límites de lo imaginado." Lina Meruane "Al recuperar el mundo de los confines patagónicos -desconocido incluso para los chilenos- se convirtió en el conquistador literario de ese territorio austral donde enloquecen las brújulas. Describió a los hombres de a caballo o de a bordo que circulan por aquellos páramos y los transformó en un mito." Claudia Donoso "Coloane es un hombre que escribe la verdad de lo que se siente y de sus experiencias. Esta sinceridad de escritor no es muy frecuente, pese a las apariencias, y constituye el sello de autenticidad que garantiza el valor de toda su obra." Armando Uribe "Chile está por concluirse. La soledad es demasiado grande, el frío demasiado intenso, los témpanos son del tamaño de continentes, los lobos marinos, los pájaros, las ballenas son los únicos habitantes de estos parajes. Sin embargo, un navegante, solitario, silencioso y barbudo, recorre la región, y conoce los escasos hombres que la pueblan. Es Francisco Coloane." José DonosoBy Andrea Camilleri. 2020
Veintitrés ejercicios de memoria que rememoran los momentos clave de la vida de Andrea Camilleri, ilustrados por artistas italianos de…
la talla de Alessandro Gottardo, Gipi, Lorenzo Mattotti, Guido Scarabottolo y Olimpia Zagnoli. A pesar de haberse quedado ciego a los noventa y un años, Andrea Camilleri no se dejó amedrentar por la oscuridad, igual que nunca tuvo miedo a la página en blanco. El autor siciliano escribió dictando hasta el final de sus días, y con la oralidad encontró una nueva forma de contar historias. Desde el principio de su ceguera, se aplicó al ejercicio de la memoria con la misma disciplina férrea con la que había trabajado toda su vida. Con persistente lucidez, se dedicó a hilvanar los recuerdos de una vida larga y prolífica, haciendo gala de una agudeza mental única y su particular visión del mundo. Este libro nació como un ejercicio para practicar esta nueva forma de escritura, una especie de cuadernillo de vacaciones: veintitrés relatos concebidos en veintitrés días. En ellas, el autor rememora episodios clave de su vida, retrata a los artistas que tuvo en más estima y repasa la historia reciente de Italia, la que ha vivido en primera persona. Un juego literario donde se entrelazan sonidos, conversaciones e imágenes que nunca podrá sacarse de la cabeza. «Me gustaría que este libro fuera como la pirueta de un acróbata que vuela de un trapecio a otro, tal vez haciendo un triple salto mortal, siempre con la sonrisa en los labios, sin exteriorizar la fatiga, el compromiso diario o la sensación constante de riesgo que ha hecho posible ese progreso. Si el trapecista mostrara el esfuerzo que le ha costado ejecutar esa cabriola, el espectador ciertamente no disfrutaría del espectáculo.» La crítica ha dicho:«A pesar de haber sido dictados a Isabella Dessalvi, estos ejercicios resuenan en el lector con la voz fuerte, hueca e irónica de su autor. Uno casi puede sentir las entonaciones, las pausas, la cadencia, su estado de ánimo. En todos se percibe un amargor nostálgico y divertido.»Il MessaggeroBy Nick Mamatas. 2007
He walks the stars embedded in the virtual dome of night and, when he tires of a world, throws a…
small black stone over his shoulder—and entire societies blink out of existence. The work is necessary, or so he insists. But the Planetbreaker's son has his own ideas. Meanwhile, in "The Strange Case Of," Mamatas gleefully blinks sentimental, shopworn ideas out of easy acceptance. "The Twin Dragons of Sentimentality and Didacticism" explores the dangers and pleasures of Animal Rescue. But listen. That "Ring, Ring, Ring" (and so forth) you hear is the dreaded ouija phone connecting the living with the dead. And it's for you. Of course we include our predictably unpredictable, outrageously rageous Outspoken Interview with Mamatas. Also for you.By Patrice Martinez. 2020
Het diamanten halssnoer is een vergiftigd geschenk voor elke vrouw die het als geschenk van haar geliefde ontvangt. Er is…
geen weg meer terug eens het om de hals van de tedere vrouw gehangen heeft. Passie en emotie in het het mythische Griekenland.By Marzia Bosoni. 2020
Uma fonte. Tudo começou na beira de uma fonte em um parque entre respingos de água e pequenas gotas pairando…
no ar da manhã. Lisa não era uma mulher como as outras, era a vida: livre, orgulhosa, gentil e, principalmente, apaixonada. Seus olhos verdes, brilhantes como a estrela Sirius, sabiam como falar ao coração e podiam ensinar o que significa amar. Porque, no fundo do coração de Lisa tinha um amor trancafiado em segredo, um grande amor doce e sincero. A primeira vez que a vi, ela estava sentada na beira de uma fonte em um parque. Foi assim que me apaixonei por ela.By Jt Lawrence. 2020
Una antología que reúne doce relatos perversos y llenos de ironía, en los que la autora hace gala de un…
estilo imaginativo y espontáneo, creando personajes y tramas inolvidables. El libro incluye: “Vía de escape” —un bebé siente que ha nacido en el cuerpo equivocado y debe tomar medidas creativas para corregir el error. “El picor” —un intenso e inexplicable picor lleva a la protagonista al borde de la autodestrucción. “El Bridge Gate” —un conmovedor relato sobre una hija que anhela comunicar con su padre distanciado a través de cartas. Aunque éste corrige despiadadamente su escritura, la niña no se desanima y, poco a poco, descubre que su progenitor tiene sus propios defectos. “La cazafortunas incauta” —una mujer envenena paulatinamente a su esposo, para no romperle el corazón.