Author:Antonio Tabucchi,Frances Frenaye
The short story collection that launched Tabucchi to fame, reflecting on the uncertainties, memories, mistakes and mysteries of life
Eleven short stories pivoting on life's ambiguities and the central question they pose in Tabucchi's fiction: is it choice, fate, accident, or even, occasionally, a kind of magic that plays a decisive role in the protagonists' lives? Set in Paris, Lisbon, Madras and New York and blended with the author's wonderfully intelligent imagination, Tabucchi reflects on the elemental aspects of the human experience, exploring grief, uncertainty, adventure, memory and love.
'One of the most admired Italian writers of his generation' The Times
Tabucchi writes with what Italo Calvino, who shared the same translator, called "quickness" - an agility of mind and economy of narrative that pulls the reader along
—— GuardianElegant ... amusing ... the magic of language, artfully used ... Tabucchi manages to play simultaneously in the treble and in the bass
—— Los Angeles TimesMeticulously crafted stories marked by wit, emotion, memory and lost grandeur
—— Publishers WeeklyConstantly illuminating and thoroughly astounding... a stunning and moving work by one of our most brilliant authors.
—— BRYAN WASHINGTON, author of Lot and MemorialThese stories by the Taiwanese American author of the gutsy 2020 debut novel Bestiary are obsessed with the vagaries of emigration and adolescence. Populated by ghosts and spirits, they dissolve the rigidities of American life into a slipstream of folkloric myth and transform the familiar world into something wilder.
—— 100 Notable Books of 2022 , New York TimesTo read K-Ming Chang is to see the world in fresh, surreal technicolor... Both wild and lyrical, visionary and touching. Read her!
—— SHARLENE TEO, author of PontiFerociously talented
—— JUSTIN TORRES, author of We the AnimalsA whole body experience.
—— THEMNo one writes like K-Ming Chang. Wise, energetic, funny, and wild, Gods of Want displays a boundless imagination anchored by the weight of ancestors and history. These stories sing, a true force to behold.
—— KALI FAJARDO-ANSTINE, author of Sabrina and CorinaIn the genre of feminine madness, these stories are to be worshipped. They are fearless, hysterical, violent yet full of grace. Each sentence escalates toward devastating, poetic insight about our bodies, about cultural demands both treasured and feared, and about what makes being alive a terror and a joy.
—— VENITA BLACKBURN, author of How to Wrestle a GirlChang returns with a dazzling collection of stories within stories that draw on old myths to embody the heartache and memories of Asian American women. Chang's bold conceits and potent imagery evoke a raw, visceral power that captures feelings of deep longing and puts them into words. This stellar collection will leave readers hungry for more.
—— Publishers Weekly (starred review)This book traces a line from old worlds to new worlds by means of the bloody umbilical cords that stretch between them. . . . These stories unthread the tangled relationships between mothers and daughter, aunts and cousins, siblings and lovers . . . a lingering sense that language, as well as life, is infinitely adaptable, no matter the ground on which it is given to grow. Lurid, funny, strange, and deftly sorrowing-an important new voice.
—— Kirkus Reviews (starred review)Dazzling . . . This stellar collection will leave readers hungry for more.
—— Publishers Weekly (starred review)[K-Ming Chang] rewrites the world as a place of radical transformation.
—— New York Times Book Review[Her] ability, to take a common, decidedly earthbound, experience and transform it through her lens into a fantastical, otherworldly encounter shines. . . . Chang's writing reflects her gift as a lifelong listener of oral storytelling . . . and her ability to synthesize new ideas with her own spin on language.
—— San Francisco ChronicleChang has a special talent for forging history into myth and myth into present-day fiction. . . . Gods of Want is in some ways a fantasy of queer freedom. Its main characters, all Taiwanese or Chinese by birth or descent, are allowed to be who they are, to love and make love to whomever they choose.
—— Los Angeles Times[K-Ming Chang] is back with her signature precise and enthralling prose in this short-story collection.
—— ShondalandK-Ming Chang's inspired mix of magic and realism returns in full fabulist force. . . . The stories are eclectic . . . and united by Chang's fascination with the queer and quotidian in her characters' worlds. . . . Piercing.
—— EsquireHer new short-story collection Gods of Want both widens and calcifies the expansiveness of her range. . . . Chang is singular amongst us all. . . . New work from Chang is a cause for celebration-a holiday in its own right-and it's also a reminder of the infinite possibilities on the page. . . . Nothing short of marvelous.
—— Bryan Washington , Electric Literature