Author:Katherine Mansfield,Ali Smith
WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY ALI SMITH
Katherine Mansfield's clear, sparkling and perceptive short stories revolutionized the genre, and this collection represents the whole range of her writing. Moving, resonant, full of light and colour, they range from short sharp studies to longer, richer tales, encompassing her three major volumes Bliss, The Garden Party and In a German Pension, and fifteen tantalizing fragments of unfinished stories published after her tragic death, including 'Honesty', an intriguing tale of two bachelors, and 'The Doves' Nest', an exquisite story of a widowed mother and her daughter in the Riviera who receive a mysterious gentleman caller. Graceful, delicate and quietly devastating, they observe apparently trivial incidents to create sensitive, often painful revelations of her characters' inner lives.
The most perceptive author of the twentieth century
—— The TimesYates is a realist par excellence, the natural heir to Hemingway's pared-to-the-bones style and the antecedent of Carver's flat minimalism. There is something else though: a kind of transparency, almost a translucency, that owes more to Fitzgerald, his great literary hero... Read and weep
—— Kate Atkinson , GuardianYates created what is almost the New York equivalent of Dubliners
—— New York TimesEloquent and powerful... Wryly funny even when he's quietly tearing your heart out
—— Harper'sExtravagantly gifted... Yates' eye and ear are unsurpassed; I know of no writer whose senses are in more admirable condition. It is they that make his characters live, make these stories move and beat - they, and the sure perfection of his writing
—— EsquireThe stories are sharply focused, beautifully written and powerfully moving. I know of no collection like it. Deservedly it has become a classic
—— Ann BeattieYates is a master of the form
—— Sebastian FaulksDark, funny and disturbing
—— London Review of BooksThese 10 inventive stories, set mostly in the Florida Everglades, mix satire and sophisticated whimsy
—— New York TimesKaren Russell has produced an engaging debut. Her ability to integrate mythology and the supernatural with the very contemporary...is reminiscent of Angela Carter, but unlike Carter's many imitators, Russell never descends into whimsy... In St Lucy's, humans, ghosts and animals are utterly real; and Russell sells the genuine article, a seemingly effortless writer
—— Alisa Cox , MslexiaThese are stories that will sneak into the back of your brain and lurk there long after you are finished reading.
—— Global ReviewPoignant and wonderful story...concentrates, without effort, all Malouf's themes...it needs to be read
—— Prospect