Anatolia and Other Stories

Name: Anatolia and Other Stories
SKU: 978-0-615-28182-7
Price: 9.60 USD
Availability: InStock

Publication Date: October 2009

Description

In these eleven stories of novelistic breadth and ambition, global tensions and harmonies come alive as rarely seen in contemporary fiction. Shivani takes the measure of the fallout from globalization as well as its advantages, exploring diverse cultures to gauge their ultimate resiliencies.

An undocumented Indian worker in Dubai, an Issei man in a California internment camp, a persecuted Baha’i novelist in contemporary Tehran, a Chinese-American conservator at a Boston museum, a Hungarian gypsy girl in 1950s rural Indiana, a dissatisfied Muslim industrialist in post-independence India, and a loyal-to-the-core Jewish trader in the Ottoman empire-these are the kinds of strong, sympathetic, fully realized characters who bridge place and individuality in this powerful collection.

The genre of multicultural/postcolonial short fiction will never be the same again. These stories push us to confront the hardest intellectual challenges of the emerging world, while never letting go of narrative urgency, concision, and lyrical power.

Praise

“Imaginative, informed, at times brash, Anis Shivani will go far.”

-The Brooklyn Rail

Anis Shivani demonstrates his versatility as a writer as he takes us around the globe in stories that juxtapose old and new, east and west, with characters that do their best to navigate the generational/religious/cultural/socio-economic tensions inherent in our global economy. Shivani’s observations are dead-on, especially when dealing with themes of loss, family dynamics, and the subtleties of power. This is a solid collection that offers the best of all worlds: skilled writing flavored with detailed cultural nuances in stories that are timeless and universal.”

-Laila Halaby

Anis Shivani has an enviable narrative reach. He populates worlds that are psychologically compelling, socially acute, and morally challenging. Reading Anatolia and Other Stories, we feel that life has been lived deeply and then-the hard part-served up fresh to the senses.”

-Sven Birkerts

In Anatolia and Other Stories, Anis Shivani does no less than deliver a world.”

-Julie Shigekuni

About the Author

Anis Shivani

Black Lawrence Press published Anis Shivani’s first book, Anatolia and Other Stories, in 2009. The book was longlisted for the Frank O’Connor international short story award, and has received many great reviews over the last three years. Rigoberto Gonzalez called it the best small press book published in 2009. Stories from Anatolia and Other Stories appear in Crazyhorse, Other Voices, River City, South Dakota Review, Confrontation, Stand, and other journals. Anis’s other books include The Fifth Lash and Other Stories (2012)—also currently longlisted for the Frank O’Connor award; My Tranquil War and Other Poems (2012); Against the Workshop (2011); and the forthcoming novel Karachi Raj (2013). Anis’s work appears in Georgia Review, Southwest Review, Antioch Review, Michigan Quarterly Review, Iowa Review, Threepenny Review, Boston Review, Epoch, Agni, Fence, Subtropics, Pleiades, Boulevard, Denver Quarterly, Colorado Review, Times Literary Supplement, London Magazine, Cambridge Quarterly, Meanjin, Antigonish Review, Dalhousie Review, Fiddlehead, and many other journals. He is a member of the National Book Critics Circle, and often reviews books for newspapers and magazines. He has just finished a book of sonnets called Soraya, and a book of criticism called Literature at the Global Crossroads. Currently he is at work on a novel called Abruzzi, 1936, a new book of criticism on “plastic realism” in recent American fiction, and a poetry manuscript called Empire. He won a 2012 Pushcart Prize, lives in Houston, Texas, and graduated from Harvard College.