Over on the other side of the paywall, we’ve been having a great time working on the first of a series of stories from a remarkable new anthology called The Penguin Book of the International Short Story, edited by Rabih Alameddine and John Freeman. The book also featured a wonderful introduction by the editors, who have generously shared it with us here:
Thank you, Rabih and John.
I particularly loved this, from the intro, as the authors list a few sources of the “complex form of contentment which only a short story can provide,” which can “derive from narrative, from page-turning energy; it can also come from setting, that sense of place, or familiarity, or unfamiliarity made real. A good story can do much to situate us in the world. Joy can also come from the orality of a story’s language, or a rhythm to its prose, a sense of mischief, or a spike of absurdity, a well-made character portrait. There are so many ways a story can be great. We wanted, in making this book, to reflect as many ways as we could.”
And, in the anthology, they have very much succeeded in this.
Join us over behind the paywall - we are currently working on a lovely story called “The Illumination of Santiago” (we are having some of our questions answered by the author, Nona Fernández) and we have four more stories lined up behind that one - such different stories, each intense in its own way. Come on over!
(Or, as the editors say in their intro: “We hope you can sing with us.”)
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