WEALTH OF IDEAS

The announcement just came in. "We Need New Names" by NoViolet Bulawayo, is now on the Booker Prize Shortlist. The list is strong and diverse. We Need New Names  by NoViolet Bulawayo  (Chatto & Windus) The Luminaries  by Eleanor Catton (Granta) The Harvest  by Jim Crace  (Picador) The Lowland  by Jhumpa Lahiri  (Bloomsbury) A Tale for the Time Being  by Ruth Ozeki  (Canongate) The Testament of Mary  by Colm Tóibín  (Penguin) "The six books on the list could not be more diverse. There are examples from novelists from New Zealand, England, Canada, Ireland and Zimbabwe – each with its own highly distinctive taste. They range in size from the 832 pages of Eleanor Catton's The Luminaries to the 104-page The Testament of Mary by Colm Tóibín. The times represented stretch from the biblical Middle East (Tóibín) to contemporary Zimbabwe (NoViolet Bulawayo) by way of 19th-century New Zealand (Catton), 1960s India (Jumpha L...

To understand the short story form, I am reading any story I can lay my hands on, good or bad, classic or contemporary. Since I started this exploration in April, I have since discovered, but haven't read all, the leading names in the genre. This weekend I am reading stories from these books: Homeland and other stories by Barbara Kingsolver Mothers and Sons by Colm Toibin African Stories by Doris Lessing These are authors I have always known as novelists, yet they have also written some great stories. I met Kingsolver in The Poisonwood Bible , which I reviewed for a publication called English Tales. I remember admiring the research that Kingsolver did for the novel, and the way she exposed the stereotypes of Africa, critically revisiting the concept of the Dark Continent. Beyond these issues, the novel displayed great craft, especially in Point of View. Doris tends to be overwhelming, and I have only read two or three of her novels, but my all-time favorite is The Grass is Sing...