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Hi all,
I just wanted to let you know about a short-story collection I got for Christmas, which I only got to last week. It's called Best European Fiction 2010 (edited by Aleksandar Hemon) from Dalkey Archive Press, it came out in January last year, and it is excellent. I believe it's a new series.
It takes a story from almost every European country (30 in all from Albania to Wales), and the selection is eclectic to say the least, including Alisdair Gray (author of Lanark and 1982 Janine), Jon Fosse (the new Ibsen, apparently), Julian Rios, and Jean-Phillipe Toussaint.
If you enjoy stories that are in any way surreal, absurd, quirky, or offbeat, then this is the collection for you. Includes an introduction from Zadie Smith.
There is a review from the Guardian here.
The 2011 collection is just out, I haven't purchased it yet, but it has the same editor, an introduction from Colum McCann, and you can read about it here.
Any other fans of European short stories out there? If you haven't sampled much, I recommend it, it's very interesting to read a set of writers with very different influences (I would argue Kafka influences European writers as much as Hemingway influences American writers).
Anyway, check it out,
Dave
I just wanted to let you know about a short-story collection I got for Christmas, which I only got to last week. It's called Best European Fiction 2010 (edited by Aleksandar Hemon) from Dalkey Archive Press, it came out in January last year, and it is excellent. I believe it's a new series.
It takes a story from almost every European country (30 in all from Albania to Wales), and the selection is eclectic to say the least, including Alisdair Gray (author of Lanark and 1982 Janine), Jon Fosse (the new Ibsen, apparently), Julian Rios, and Jean-Phillipe Toussaint.
If you enjoy stories that are in any way surreal, absurd, quirky, or offbeat, then this is the collection for you. Includes an introduction from Zadie Smith.
There is a review from the Guardian here.
The 2011 collection is just out, I haven't purchased it yet, but it has the same editor, an introduction from Colum McCann, and you can read about it here.
Any other fans of European short stories out there? If you haven't sampled much, I recommend it, it's very interesting to read a set of writers with very different influences (I would argue Kafka influences European writers as much as Hemingway influences American writers).
Anyway, check it out,
Dave