O. Henry Prize Stories 2007 (The O. Henry Prize Collection)
Four Native American men travel toward the sea, briefly connect with another tribe, and are overtaken by tragedy on the way home.
Work Information
Four Native American men travel toward the sea, briefly connect with another tribe, and are overtaken by tragedy on the way home.
Book Information
- Publisher
- Anchor
- Published
- 2007-05-08
- Pages
- 384 pages
- Language
- 英語
- Size
- 13.2 x 2 x 20.3 cm
- ISBN-13
- 9780307276889
- ISBN-10
- 0307276880
- Price
- 3407 JPY
- Category
- 洋書/Literature & Fiction/History & Criticism/Movements & Periods/Gothic & Romantic
An arresting collection of contemporary fiction at its best, these stories explore a vast range of subjects, from love and deception to war and the insidious power of class distinctions. However clearly spoken, in voices sophisticated, cunning, or naive, here is fiction that consistently defies our expectations. Selected from thousands of stories in hundreds of literary magazines, the twenty prize-winning stories are accompanied by essays from each of the three eminent jurors on which stories they judged the best, and observations from all twenty prizewinners on what inspired them. “The Room” William Trevor “The Scent of Cinnamon” Charles Lambert “Cherubs” Justine Dymond “Galveston Bay, 1826” Eddie Chuculate “The Gift of Years” Vu Tran “The Diarist” Richard McCann “War Buddies” Joan Silber “Djamilla” Tony D’Souza “In a Bear’s Eye” Yannick Murphy “Summer, with Twins” Rebecca Curtis “Mudder Tongue” Brian Evenson “Companion” Sana Krasikov “A Stone House” Bay Anapol “The Company of Men” Jan Ellison “City Visit” Adam Haslett “The Duchess of Albany” Christine Schutt “A New Kind of Gravity” Andrew Foster Altschul “Gringos” Ariel Dorfman “El Ojo de Agua” Susan Straight
Laura Furman's work has appeared in The New Yorker , Vanity Fair , Ploughshares , The Yale Review , and other magazines. She is the founding editor of the highly regarded American Short Fiction (threetime finalist for the American Magazine Award). A professor of English at the University of Texas at Austin, she teaches in the graduate James A. Michener Center for writers. She lives in Austin. Ursula LeGuin is the author of The Left Hand of Darkness . She lives in Portland, Oregon. Charles D'Ambrosio is the author of The Dead Fish Museum . He lives in Portland, Oregon. Lily Tuck's most recent work is The News from Paraguay , which won the National Book Award . She lives in New York City and Maine.
Reviews
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Every year for the past 10+ years I have read both the O. Henry Prize Stories anthology and The Best American Short Stories anthology. My main complaint about O. Henry series editor Laura Furman has been her tendency to pick stories which focus on loss, illness, death and other depressing subjects. I won't be so bold as to claim she has read these criticisms, but this year she did produce a much more well-rounded selection of stories that more fully illustrate the possibilities of the short story form. By doing so, she has come much closer to realizing the O. Henry anthology's subtitle of "The Best Stories of the Year". In fact, this volume contains the best story I have read in several years, although the prize jury felt otherwise: Charles Lambert's "The Scent of Cinnamon". While other stories in the anthology push the creative boundaries of the short story form, Lambert's story is a classic short story in the O. Henry mold, complete with a surprise revealed at the end that adds a whole new dimension to what you have just read. The story is not one word longer than it should be, and every word is meaningful and well-chosen. The portrayal of longing amidst isolation is powerfully moving. This story is a work of art which should be taught in schools as a model of the form. Two other very different stories that I also especially enjoyed are: -- Eddie Chuculate's "Galveston Bay, 1826", which reads like a written-down oral history of an Indian's journey across other tribes' lands in Texas and the amazing sights and events that he encounters; and -- Susan Straight's "El Ojo de Aqua", which describes the travails of an elderly poor migrant black worker. While everyone will have their own favorites, I do feel that editor Laura Furman has assembled her strongest collection of stories to date. I highly recommend this volume, and short stories in general, as they are the perfect complements to a busy lifestyle. Even those folks with little time to read should be able to find time on occasion to enjoy a well-written short story, and this volume contains many.
Related Literary Awards
- O. Henry Award Edition 86 (2007) ・Winner・Winner