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Books > Fiction > Special features > Short stories
A bold and beautiful compilation of short stories, unsent letters,
and confessions, Sand Nigga is Bula Barua's much-anticipated first
published work. Bula's heartfelt writing is captivating, humorous,
frank, subtle, and courageous. The book's title story is a sharply
poignant tale, which addresses imposed racism by older generations
upon their unwilling and younger counterparts. 'Dear Auntie X - You
can choose to be racist against Africans and Muslims, if you'd
like. That is your prerogative. I still love you. However, when I
was 15 years old and I received that racist note wedged in my
locker, I chose to take my focus off the color of a man's skin, and
instead focus on the content of his character. I chose to believe
in the dreams of Martin Luther King Jr. and live by the great words
of our own Mahatma Gandhi.' Bula's finely tuned ear for combining
irony and humor with compassion is very telling. With each story,
she creates believable and honest experiences in ordinary
situations, which become extraordinary. The range of her talent and
imagination is broad and yet focused. She has the unique ability to
artistically create the worlds of the immigrant and the native, the
man and the woman, the priest and the sermon, and the
trillion-dollar corporations who seemingly rule the world. Sand
Nigga is an art piece, which symbolizes the loves, losses, and many
triumphs of the human spirit.
Minnesota is known for frigid weather, thousands of lakes, and
Scandinavian humor. But in this anthology of ten short stories, J.
L. Larson shows a different side of the state via unique tales of
conflict, adventure, and intrigue that often transport characters
outside it borders.
In July of 1970, at a benign looking intersection in the middle
of Minnesota farmland, a fateful mishap occurs yet again What is it
about this seemingly nondescript junction that makes it such a
repetitive and bloody deathtrap? Is it the terrain, the weather,
the drivers-or a combination of these and maybe a few other
factors? In another story, a paper company executive and his wife
must cope with an empty nest and the loss of his job. He's doing
fine ... until he receives a strange, late-night call about his
self-centered, malicious nemesis from the old job. In tale after
tale, Larson showcases eclectic characters who embark on adventures
that include a disaster on a popular lake, an emotional
confrontation in a university classroom, the mysterious travel
exploits experienced by a young man with his uncle, and the
recurring, dramatic impact on a young teen as his life moves
forward following a seemingly insignificant encounter.
"The Accident at Sanborn Corners and Other Minnesota Short
Stories" is an entertaining compilation of situations and themes
that illustrate how various characters cope with the unexpected in
life.
grandmother. About The Book Gems of the imagination flow
effortlessly from the pen of Fran Edelstein in this powerful
collection of short stories. Composed of seven tales, Set to Music
takes you on a dramatic journey into the very depths of the human
heart.
Spanning six countries and two continents, the title short
story, "Set to Music," tells of Anne, a pianist faced with an
overwhelming obstacle that only love-and perhaps even a miracle-can
transcend. An island resort provides a quiet retreat for a parent's
soul-searching in "Head Over Heart," while "Deedu" is a tender and
engaging story about a special friendship between a child and a
Russian immigrant.
Sweeping away time, two World War II survivors uniquely relive
their past as they meet again in "Lilacs," and life and death in a
hospital morgue create a curious dialogue about how we as humans
navigate this world in "The Paper Boat." In "The Road Ahead,"
doubts and fears turn to triumphs for a group of actors
encountering a major detour as they head for the Eiffel Tower,
while "The Mantilla" tells the riveting story of how a lace
mantilla spreads mischief.
Vivid, heartfelt, and beautifully written, Set to Music creates
an emotional tapestry of the human soul.
The book is a combinations of life moving stories, poetry and heart
warming quotations. It is written in a way to enticed you into
reflection and emotional soul searching. Some of those stories
could be your friend and acquaintance or even a family member. But
I wrote them in a way to stimulate soul searching, respect without
judgement and mutual understanding.
This edition collects and prints all of Oscar Wilde's short
fiction, principally the three collections of tales published in
the late 1880s and early 1890s. The first of these was The Happy
Prince (1888), a volume which was aimed at the children's market,
and which capitalized on the growing popularity of fairy stories in
nineteenth-century Britain. This edition then prints Lord Arthur
Savile's Crime (1891), Wilde's volume of short tales satirizing the
manners and morals of London's elite in the last decades of the
nineteenth century-those 'upper ten thousand', as Max Beerbohm
later called them. In many ways these stories anticipate both the
themes and the devices of Wilde's later and highly successful
society comedies, including Lady Windermere's Fan and The
Importance of Being Earnest. This edition also includes Wilde's
second volume of fairy stories, A House of Pomegranates (1891);
this volume comprised tales written for adults, and contained
Decadent and what can be seen as highly sexualized themes. The
textual and printing history of each of these volumes is described
and explored in detail. The substantial commentary provides a full
critical annotation of each story. Wilde also wrote stories which
were not collected, most importantly a jeu d'esprit on the identity
of the addressee of Shakespeare's Sonnets-'The Portrait of Mr
W.H.', a piece which appeared in periodical form in the late 1880s.
Wilde expanded his story, turning it into a hybrid of fiction and
criticism, and in the process used it as a vehicle to describe his
view of the relationship-physical, artistic, and spiritual-between
Shakespeare and a (fictitious) boy-actor in his company, the 'Mr
W.H.' of the title and of the dedication of the first printing of
Shakespeare's Sonnets. This revised and expanded piece, which
remained unpublished in Wilde's lifetime, represents his most
sustained and eloquent exploration of male-male desire. The edition
prints in full for the first time Wilde's manuscript of that story.
Like the other works it prints, the edition also contains full
critical annotation which documents Wilde's reading on Renaissance
philosophy and theatre history. The lengthy introduction describes
in detail Wilde's metamorphosis from a jobbing journalist, whose
work often appeared anonymously in the penny press of the 1880s, to
an accomplished writer of fiction.
Palestine + 100 poses a question to twelve Palestinian writers:
what might your country look like in the year 2048 - a century
after the tragedies and trauma of what has come to be called the
Nakba? How might this event - which, in 1948, saw the expulsion of
over 700,000 Palestinian Arabs from their homes - reach across a
century of occupation, oppression, and political isolation, to
shape the country and its people? Will a lasting peace finally have
been reached, or will future technology only amplify the suffering
and mistreatment of Palestinians? Covering a range of approaches -
from SF noir, to nightmarish dystopia, to high-tech farce - these
stories use the blank canvas of the future to reimagine the
Palestinian experience today. Along the way, we encounter drone
swarms, digital uprisings, time-bending VR, peace treaties that
span parallel universes, and even a Palestinian superhero, in
probably the first anthology of science fiction from Palestine
ever.
George Mackay Brown was a master of the short story form and
produced a steady stream of short fiction collections, starting
with A Calendar of Love (1967) and include A Time to Keep (1969)
and Hawkfall (1974), as well as his poetry collections and novels.
In this selection, edited and introduced by Malachy Tallack, we
explore the author's Orkney and the ups and downs of the crofters
and fishermen there. These magical stories, drawn from ancient lore
and modern life, strip life down to the essentials.
A collection of short stories spanning the best of science fiction,
fantasy, and horror. Included within are tales such as "Price of
Survival," a story where a king must make a bargain with the
darkness to save his people. "Last Contact" wherein an expedition
looking for a new colony for the Earth's growing population finds
the ideal world, except it is already inhabited. And "Vengeance,
Inc." whose management specializes in helping the recently-departed
get revenge on those who killed them.
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