VICTORIA HEATH looks at the story that made her want to write, ‘First Love, Last Rites’ by Ian McEwan: ‘The ‘it’ is often referred to more sinisterly as the ‘creature’ and it’s the crux that McEwan uses to turn this story from that of a starry-eyed relationship into something darker and far more interesting…’
LELA TREDWELL recommends Robert Shearman’s collection Everyone’s Just So So Special: ‘His writing is as good as you’re going to get to a dictionary definition of special: ‘better, greater and otherwise different from what is usual’. And it’s for his third collection of short stories, in particular, that he is just so, so special, to me…’
AMANDA OOSTHUIZEN recommends Simon Van Booy’s collection Love Begins in Winter: ‘I’ve returned to some of these stories several times, and I always find surprises. In that respect, it is the literary equivalent to great music, but written in prose that is elegant, spare and startling…’
MIKE SMITH finds seven short stories by Prosper Mérimée in The World’s Thousand Best Short Stories and asks what unites them: ‘…is there a Prosper Mérimée stamp upon them? Is there the common hallmark of the short story, whatever that might be?’
