At this very moment, in a Top Secret International Venue*, three highly esteemed Lit-Criterati** are debating the merits of a collection of short stories published in 2011, with the primary expectation of handing out a very large sum of wonga "rewarding an individual author's commitment to this most exacting of forms and encouraging the publication of collections of stories in book form as distinct from single stories in periodicals".Yep, it's the Frank O'Connor International Short Story Award, which is either going to be won this year by:
Gold Boy, Emerald Girl - Yiyun Li (Beijing-born, American Resident)
Light Lifting - Alexander MacLeod (Canadian debutante)
Saints and Sinners - Edna O’Brien (Irish)
Death is Not an Option - Suzanne Rivecca (American Debutante)
The Empty Family - Colm Tóibín (Irish)
Marry or Burn - Valerie Trueblood (American)
We will be reading THE WINNER.
(Alas, this is the way our X-Factoried world works: people want to read WINNERS, not LOSERS, even if the winner in this case might not be the book of stories that is best placed to foment your personal and probably rather particular spiritual, aesthetic and humoral juices.)
If you want to spend some time with a couple of LOSERS (I'm currently reading Colm Tóibín's collection, see photo, who has the face but not the literary CV of a LOSER), you may wish to work your way through the whole darn short list, or even the long one. Whatever you do, we will be gathering to discuss on November 16, the WINNER of this year's Frank O'Connor International Story Collection.
Should also be a nice tie-in with National Short Story Week, if you go for these kinds of annual remembrances.
*Slough
**They did it for the free books. Wouldn't you?
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