Description

An arresting collection of contemporary fiction at its best, these stories explore a vast range of subjects, from love and deception to war and the insidious power of class distinctions.

However clearly spoken, in voices sophisticated, cunning, or naive, here is fiction that consistently defies our expectations. Selected from thousands of stories in hundreds of literary magazines, the twenty prize-winning stories are accompanied by essays from each of the three eminent jurors on which stories they judged the best, and observations from all twenty prizewinners on what inspired them.

“The Room”

William Trevor

“The Scent of Cinnamon”

Charles Lambert

“Cherubs”

Justine Dymond

“Galveston Bay, 1826”

Eddie Chuculate

“The Gift of Years”

Vu Tran

“The Diarist”

Richard McCann

“War Buddies”

Joan Silber

“Djamilla”

Tony D’Souza

“In a Bear’s Eye”

Yannick Murphy

“Summer, with Twins”

Rebecca Curtis

“Mudder Tongue”

Brian Evenson

“Companion”

Sana Krasikov

“A Stone House”

Bay Anapol

“The Company of Men”

Jan Ellison

“City Visit”

Adam Haslett

“The Duchess of Albany”

Christine Schutt

“A New Kind of Gravity”

Andrew Foster Altschul

“Gringos”

Ariel Dorfman

“El Ojo de Agua”

Susan Straight

“The View from Castle Rock”

Alice Munro

About the Author

Laura J. Furman (born 1945) is an American author best known for her role as series editor for the O. Henry Awards prize story collection. Her work has appeared in The New Yorker, Mirabella, Ploughshares, Southwest Review.She has written three collections of stories (The Glass House, Watch Time Fly, and Drinking with the Cook), two novels (The Shadow Line and Tuxedo Park), and a memoir (Ordinary Paradise).She founded American Short Fiction, which was a three-time finalist for the National Magazine Award. She is currently Professor of English at the University of Texas at Austin, where she teaches undergraduate and graduate courses in writing. Most recently, she has announced that she has submitted a collection of short stories to her agent, and the subsequent collection will be her first new work to follow the release of 2001's Drinking with the Cook.