The Vastness of the Dark by Alistair MacLeod
The Vastness of the Dark seems to be a quite simple tale about a young man escaping from the confines of his family to find freedom, but it becomes something more complex in the last few pages.
Borges Marathon, Part 2: The Improbable Impostor Tom Castro
I love the writing of Jorge Luis Borges. Back in the early days of this blog, I was so deeply affected by reading his collection of ‘fictions’ that I broke my optimistic vow of reviewing every book I read. It…
Stories of Racism and Retail Hell: Friday Black by Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah
Race and capitalism in America should be fertile ground for literary fiction. This year’s Black Friday shopping frenzy brought the usual bout of stabbings and shootings to add to the overall death count, not to mention the looming environmental collapse that…
Different kinds of writer
I have a bad habit, sometimes, of generalising about what “writers” are like, mostly based only on my own experience. Last night I got a good reminder that there are many different kinds of writer. I was performing at an…
Off-key stories hit the mark
I was excited to meet Courttia Newland at Bim Literary Festival here in Barbados earlier this year. He’s a British writer, but was here because his mother is Barbadian. I’d read his debut novel The Scholar when it first came…
How much would you pay for a short story?
Quick question for you. I’m thinking of making some of my short stories available for download from this site, but am not sure how much to charge for them. So I’ve set up a quick poll, below. I’d really appreciate…
“Maybe This Time” by Alois Hotschnig
I'd thoroughly recommend this book to anyone who's looking for something a little weird and disturbing and different.
“Best European Fiction 2010” edited by Aleksandar Hemon
This was a very interesting collection of short stories from around Europe. There’s one piece from each country, so it really felt like a broad and varied collection rather than being weighted toward particular countries. One thing I didn’t like…
“Bon Voyage, Mr President” by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
A short book of four short stories. I liked the main one, Bon Voyage Mr President. It’s quite a straightforward story, with none of the magical realism for which Marquez is known. The dying ex-president of a Caribbean nation is…