by Junot Díaz (Author), Heidi Pitlor (Author)
"The literary 'Oscars' features twenty outstanding examples of the best of the best in American short stories." --Shelf Awareness for Readers The Best American Short Stories 2016 will be selected by Pulitzer Prize winner Junot Díaz. He brings "one of the most distinctive and magnetic voices in contemporary fiction: limber, streetwise, caffeinated and wonderfully eclectic" (Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times) to the collection.
Front Jacket
If the novel is our culture s favored literary form, upon which we heap all our desiccated literary laurels, if the novel is, say our Jaime Lannister, then the short story is our very own Tyrion: the disdained little brother, the perennial underdog. But what an underdog, writes Junot Diaz in his introduction to The Best American Short Stories 2016.
From a Nigerian boy s friendship with his family s former houseboy to a sweatshop girl s experience as a sister wife, from love and murder on the frontier to a meltdown in the academe, these stories, for Diaz, have the economy and power to break hearts bones vanities and cages.
Ten years into her role as series editor, Heidi Pitlor confides, A great pleasure of my job is the rush that comes with discovery...I m reading a new story and not checking how long it is or what time I have to pick up the kids. I m reading and feeling and thinking, and, if I m lucky, laughing too. I m not working at all. A great story has that power: it removes you from your life. It lifts you away from a while. Junot Diaz and I found much to discover this year. "
Back Jacket
The Best American Series(r)
If the novel is our culture s favored literary form, upon which we heap all our desiccated literary laurels, if the novel is, say our Jaime Lannister, then the short story is our very own Tyrion: the disdained little brother, the perennial underdog. But what an underdog, writes Junot Diaz in his introduction to The Best American Short Stories 2016. From a Nigerian boy s friendship with his family s former houseboy to a sweatshop girl s experience as a sister wife, from love and murder on the frontier to a meltdown in the academe, these stories, for Diaz, have the economy and power to break hearts bones vanities and cages.
The Best American Short Stories 2016 includes
CHIMAMANDA NGOZI ADICHIE, MOHAMMED NASEEHU ALI, ANDREA BARRETT, SARAH SHUN-LIEN BYNUM, TED CHIANG, LOUISE ERDRICH,
LAUREN GROFF, KAREN RUSSELL, JOHN EDGAR WIDEMAN
and others
Junot Diaz, editor, is the author of the critically acclaimed Drown; The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, which won the 2008 Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award; and This Is How You Lose Her, a New York Times bestseller and National Book Award finalist. He is the recipient of a MacArthur "Genius" Fellowship, PEN/Malamud Award, Dayton Literary Peace Prize, Guggenheim Fellowship, and PEN/O. Henry Award.
Heidi Pitlor, series editor, is a former senior editor at Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. She is the author of the novels The Birthdays and The Daylight Marriage.
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Author Biography
JUNOT DÍAZ is the author of Drown, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, which won the 2008 Pulitzer Prize, and This Is How You Lose Her, a New York Times bestseller and National Book Award finalist.
HEIDI PITLOR is the author of the novels The Birthdays and The Daylight Marriage.