Being Various: New Irish Short Stories($70.08Value)

Description

"A piercing look at the inner lives of a refreshing variety of Irish people"―Henrietta Verma, Credo Reference, New York, Library Journal Edited by prize-winning author and playwright Lucy Caldwell, Being Various brings together original stories from Ireland’s current golden age of writing with some exciting new voices, never before published. Following her own brilliant short story collection Multitudes , Lucy Caldwell guest edits the sixth volume of Faber's long running series of new Irish short stories, continuing the great work started by the late David Marcus and subsequent guest editors Kevin Barry, Deirdre Madden and Joseph O'Connor. Contributors to this richly diverse collection include: Kevin Barry - Eimear McBride - Lisa McInerney - Stuart Neville - Sally Rooney - Kit de Waal - Belinda McKeon ***"In her introduction to this collection of varied Irish tales, editor Caldwell (All the Beggars Riding) outlines the diversity found within: the book features authors who are "two-thirds female, one-third Northern. Two-thirds born in Ireland, two-thirds currently resident." Some of the authors (Kevin Barry, Eimear McBride, Stuart Neville, Sally Rooney) are already reasonably well known here, while others will be new to readers. All offer crystal-clear looks at the inner lives of the conflicted, whether a young Chinese woman who builds an alternate life around the Facebook profile of a possible love interest (Yan Ge's "How I Fell in Love with the Well-Documented Life of Alexander Whelan"); another young woman who, reluctantly and fearfully, returns to Northern Ireland for her murdered father's funeral and is pressured to exact revenge (Adrian McKinty's "Jack's Return Home"); or a-small-hometown man who can't understand what his brother's flirty, rude, maybe-girlfriend wants from him (Rooney's "Colour and Light"). VERDICT A piercing look at the inner lives of a refreshing variety of Irish people.―Henrietta Verma, Credo Reference, New York, Library Journal Lucy Caldwell was born in Belfast in 1981. She is the author of three novels and several stage plays and radio dramas. Awards include the Rooney Prize for Irish Literature, the Dylan Thomas Prize, the George Devine Award for Most Promising Playwright, the BBC Stewart Parker Award, a Fiction Uncovered Award and a Major Individual Artist Award from the Arts Council of Northern Ireland. Her most recent novel, All the Beggars Riding, was chosen for Belfast's One City One Book campaign in 2013 and shortlisted for the Kerry Group Irish Novel of the Year.