The Art of the Story: An International Anthology of Contemporary Short Stories
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An incomparably rich and diverse collection that brings together the world's most powerful storytellers Following the immense success of The Art of the Tale, Daniel Halpern has assembled the next generation of short story writers—those born after 1938—to create a companion volume, The Art of the Story. Attesting to the depth, range, and continued popularity of short fiction, this collection includes seventy-eight contributors from thirty-five countries. The Art of the Story combines the best of the established masters as well as the fresh, new voices of writers whose work has seldom been translated into English.Ama Ata AidooRichard FordJulia AlvarezPeter HoegMartin AmisKazuo IshiguroMargaret AtwoodBobbie Ann MasonRussell BanksIan McEwanJulian BarnesLorrie MooreAnn BeattieMurathan MunganT. C. BoyleJoyce Carol OatesPeter CareyBen OkriAngela CarterAmos OzRaymond CarverSalman RushdieVikram ChandraGraham SwiftEdwidge DanticatTatyana TolstayaDaniele del GiudiceJohn Edgar WidemanJunot D'azJeanette WintersonNathan EnglanderTobias WolffPeter EsterhazyCan XuePublishers WeeklyA decade after Halpern's Art of the Tale anthology comes a hefty companion volume, this one collecting 78 international, contemporary authors, those born between 1938 and 1970. The new book elegantly shrugs off the dictates of political and cultural theorists to answer the demands of literary aesthetics. Yet the stories represented here, written by authors from 35 countries, are rife with honest social commentary: Haruki Murakami's suburban fantasy "The Elephant Vanishes" is told by a bourgeois Japanese man living outside Tokyo; the characters in Bobbie Ann Mason's "Wish" are poor tobacco farmers with crocheted pillows, sour stomachs and dirt yards; "Escort" by Abdulrazak Gurnah tells of a Tanzanian who returns briefly from England, where he is a teacher and a scholar of poetry, and becomes unwillingly involved with his taxi driver, a meticulously evil lapsed Muslim named Salim. The philosophy guiding Halpern's choices, as he points out in a refreshingly brief introduction, is that contemporary authors, unlike the early moderns collected in his previous anthology, are essentially reactionary: they respond conservatively, critically and satirically to the effluvia of current popular media. Though claiming to be an international selection, the majority of these stories were written in English, and many are by the usual suspects for such a collection: Lorrie Moore, Joyce Carol Oates, Julian Barnes, Martin Amis, T.C. Boyle, Raymond Carver. The international scene is represented by well-known writers-in-translation like Banana Yoshimoto, Patrick Chamoiseau and Peter Esterhazy, along with some distinguished voices not yet discovered by mainstream American readers. Halpern selected these stories with great intelligence and zero trendiness, and the anthology is a true pleasure at every turn. (Nov.) Copyright 1999 Cahners Business Information.
PrefaceA Gift from Somewhere1The Keeper of the Virgins9Amor Divino15The Immortals25The Glass Tower33Wilderness Tips42Gorilla, My Love58My Mother's Memoirs, My Father's Lie, and Other True Stories63G-String69Evermore73Aren't You Happy for Me?85In Amalfi96Rara Avis106Mr. Green110The Fat Man in History118The Courtship of Mr. Lyon137Are These Actual Miles?146The Old Man Slave and the Mastiff152Dharma162Never Marry a Mexican179The Prospect from the Silver Hills189Night Women196The House Behind199All Because of the Mistake203Ysrael211Betrayal220Reflections of Spring227The Girl Who Left Her Sock on the Floor233The Twenty-seventh Man248The Parakeet261Roberto Narrates270My Father, the Englishman, and I276Optimists279The Story of the Lizard Who Had the Habit of Dining on His Wives291The Hammam295Escort298Midnight and I'm Not Famous Yet307Portrait of the Avant-Garde316Moving House331A Family Supper338Encounter346The First Day349Remember Young Cecil353Intimacy361The Stump-Grubber373Wish380Everything in This Country Must387Pornography393Behind the Blue Curtain404Willing411The Lifeguard424The Canebrake432The Management of Grief435Muradhan and Selvihan or The Tale of the Crystal Kiosk448The Elephant Vanishes453Mark of Satan466In the Shadow of War477Where the Jackals Howl481The Life and Adventures of Shed Number XII494Talking Dog502The Free Radio513Africa Kills Her Sun519The Ring527Learning to Swim534A Riddle546Minutes of Glory557On the Golden Porch567John-Jin573Who, Me a Bum?578Cinnamon Skin580You Can't Get Lost in Cape Town591Doc's Story602The Farm608Dirt Angel618The Green Man629The Night in Question637The Child Who Raised Poisonous Snakes644Helix650Biographical Notes656
