MELISSA FU finds writing inspiration within the pages of CG Menon’s debut collection, Subjunctive Moods: ‘This many-layered story is heady with a sense of old ghosts clutching old grudges and snickering at new mischief. I was struck by how different the settings and tones were in the two pieces, but the writing was equally captivating in both…’
MIKE SMITH examines the authorial commentary of Rudyard Kipling’s story ‘The Eye of Allah’: ‘Set in the monastery of St Illod it tells of the artist John of Burgos, who early on in the story, travels abroad to find ‘new devils’ to draw, to buy pigment, and to visit his ‘Infidel’ and pregnant unofficial wife…’
NICOLE MANSOUR responds to the rhythm of William Gass’s short stories: ‘In truth, this musical heartbeat underpins much notable creative prose. And perhaps one of the finest modern examples of it can be found in American writer William Gass’s seminal collection of short stories, In the Heart of the Heart of the Country…’
‘The machinery of grace is always simple.’ Michael Donaghy, in his poem ‘Machines’, writes this of the blind leaps that love requires of us – faith’s gung-ho disregard for gravity. ‘So much is chance…’ PENNY BOXALL finds the emotional landscape of Alice Munro’s short story ‘Amundsen’ is a delicate balancing act.
More than twenty years after his first encounter with ‘Kleist in Thun’, BEN WINCH continues to be dazzled: ‘each time I gaze into that mirror—a mirror-within-mirror, and therefore, if the angle’s just right, a particularly dazzling one—I see a different face. ‘
TRACY FELLS explores the emotional resonance of three very different short stories: ‘When you read a short story that thwacks an emotional punch or haunts your daydreams then you have to talk about it. I read at least one short story daily, so what prompts me to talk about specific pieces…?’
NAOMI FOYLE looks at Arab Sci-Fi in the pages of ‘Iraq +100: Stories From a Century After the Invasion’: ‘a landmark anthology of short stories in a scintillating variety of genres and tones, a book of riveting ulterior visions…’
FARHANA SHAIKH explores the homeliness of food in Jhumpa Lahiri’s debut collection: ‘In Lahiri’s Interpreter of Maladies food is more than just sustenance, it is purpose, priority and preoccupation…’
A.J. ASHWORTH identifies with the transformative power of chopping wood in Raymond Carver’s ‘Kindling’: ‘It’s not always obvious why some stories stay with us, why they seep into the small tributaries in our brains, colouring our minds like ink in water. Sometimes the reason a story resonates may be more obvious though.’
ALISON GIBBS examines how characters are shaped by politics in Nadine Gordimer’s short story, ‘The Catch’: ‘While Nadine Gordimer was known for both her fiction and her outspoken opposition to apartheid in her native South Africa, she always insisted that politics was not the driving motivation for her stories.’
