Anchor Books, May 2009
Each year since 1919, the O. Henry Prizes have been awarded to some of the previous year's most outstanding short fiction. Edited by Laura Furman, the 2009 PEN/O. Henry Prize Stories lives up to its literary legacy by bringing together twenty knockout stories that will take readers around the world and into the lives of its fascinating characters.
After reading the entire collection, readers will feel as though they've traveled the globe - the settings of these stories range from South Africa to Scotland to Egypt to the Good Old U.S. of A. The authors make each of these places palpable, and however intricate some of the story lines become, the best follow a simple trajectory: a young man falls in love with a prostitute; an uncle takes on a mistress; a daughter fights to free herself from an abusive mother.
Each year since 1919, the O. Henry Prizes have been awarded to some of the previous year's most outstanding short fiction. Edited by Laura Furman, the 2009 PEN/O. Henry Prize Stories lives up to its literary legacy by bringing together twenty knockout stories that will take readers around the world and into the lives of its fascinating characters.
After reading the entire collection, readers will feel as though they've traveled the globe - the settings of these stories range from South Africa to Scotland to Egypt to the Good Old U.S. of A. The authors make each of these places palpable, and however intricate some of the story lines become, the best follow a simple trajectory: a young man falls in love with a prostitute; an uncle takes on a mistress; a daughter fights to free herself from an abusive mother.
Desert sands harbor a disoriented soldier in the opening story, Grahm Joyce's "An Ordinary Soldier of the Queen." This tale brings to life the story of Seamus Todd, a color sergeant who fought with the British infantry at the early stages of the Gulf War. Todd triggers a land mine, and while he stands frozen in an attempt to keep it from detonating, an Arab - or a genie disguised as a butterfly - visits him on the spot. A surreal blend of the real and imagined, this story will enthrall readers with its fanciful elements and leave them grappling with the larger issues of a war and its consequences.
In line with O. Henry Prize tradition, jurors choose their favorite story, and two out of three of this year's chose "An Ordinary Soldier of the Queen." Juror Tim O'Brien praises the voice of this story as "tough, cynical, funny, wise, wise ass, courageous, down-to-earth, and rich with the lingo and flatly nuanced diction of a seasoned combat veteran." A.S. Byatt admires the tale for its pace, rhythm, and economy of words, but whatever are its highlights, this opening story foreshadows the brilliance of those that follow.
In line with O. Henry Prize tradition, jurors choose their favorite story, and two out of three of this year's chose "An Ordinary Soldier of the Queen." Juror Tim O'Brien praises the voice of this story as "tough, cynical, funny, wise, wise ass, courageous, down-to-earth, and rich with the lingo and flatly nuanced diction of a seasoned combat veteran." A.S. Byatt admires the tale for its pace, rhythm, and economy of words, but whatever are its highlights, this opening story foreshadows the brilliance of those that follow.
Other standouts transport readers into a strangely black-skied New York City, a retiree's home in Cape Town, and a park in Beijing. Instead of simply telling one story, Paul Theroux doles out twenty-two, and Junot Díaz blends Spanish with English in "Wildwood" to give readers a sense of the confusion that a Dominican daughter faces under the rule of her tyrannical mother.
No matter what terrain these stories cover, they have one thing in common. They bridge the gap between the individual and the community, as juror Anthony Doerr explains. "Writing stories" is "about learning to be able to look beyond the self, beyond the ego, to enter other lives and other worlds. It's about honing one's sense of empathy so that a story might bridge the gap between the personal and the communal." Each of these stories does just that in showing us what it means to belong to the whole.
The theme of survival seems to permeate this collection. People are persevering in all sorts of ways and bearing witness to some of life's greatest tragedies. In Viet Dinh's "Substitutes," a group of Vietnamese students continues going to school after being abandoned by numerous teachers. In Marisa Silver's "The Visitor," a nurse's aide cares for amputees, and in others-such as E.V. Slate's "Purple Bamboo Park" or John Burnside's "The Bell Ringer" - women survive the humility of a demeaning job and a lonely marriage.
No matter what terrain these stories cover, they have one thing in common. They bridge the gap between the individual and the community, as juror Anthony Doerr explains. "Writing stories" is "about learning to be able to look beyond the self, beyond the ego, to enter other lives and other worlds. It's about honing one's sense of empathy so that a story might bridge the gap between the personal and the communal." Each of these stories does just that in showing us what it means to belong to the whole.
The theme of survival seems to permeate this collection. People are persevering in all sorts of ways and bearing witness to some of life's greatest tragedies. In Viet Dinh's "Substitutes," a group of Vietnamese students continues going to school after being abandoned by numerous teachers. In Marisa Silver's "The Visitor," a nurse's aide cares for amputees, and in others-such as E.V. Slate's "Purple Bamboo Park" or John Burnside's "The Bell Ringer" - women survive the humility of a demeaning job and a lonely marriage.
Each of the writers offers further thoughts on his or her story in a section at the end of the book. Readers may be tempted to skip over this, having read the stories themselves, but it proves to be most insightful. Paul Theroux, for instance, admits that he has about a hundred others like those in his "Twenty-two Stories." Judy Troy reveals that a St. Theresa of Avila quotation inspires her story, "The Order of Things." And readers come to find out that "Icebergs" is Alistair Morgan's first published story. Not bad for a debut.
O. Henry was the pen name of prolific story writer William Sydney Porter, whose friends organized a committee to honor him by awarding these prizes in his name. This collection brings together a variety of established and new voices, filling its purpose to memorialize O. Henry and to strengthen the art of the short story.
O. Henry was the pen name of prolific story writer William Sydney Porter, whose friends organized a committee to honor him by awarding these prizes in his name. This collection brings together a variety of established and new voices, filling its purpose to memorialize O. Henry and to strengthen the art of the short story.
