They carried him, all three boys hysterical, back to the house in Windsor Terrace and then, as if miraculously, he became completely calm and Morano’s mother was able to comfort him and lay him down on the bed. He died of shock just after the doctor arrived, and my father marvelled, as he told me the story, that other than the burns to his feet there wasn’t a mark on him.
I know of course that my father told me the story as some kind of confession. I know he thought, in his guilt, that it must have had something to do with Morano’s own death, up there under the dam in the snow. And maybe that’s how it was, though I never told my father about the strange conversation about love we’d had, just Morano and me, looking out over the water to the big Beacon hills on that one evening he took me fishing. Maybe it all comes down to the same thing in the end, anyway. Finding out so young—too young—that you could be saved at last, and it could still not be enough.
TRANSLATED BY JAMIE RICHARDS
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHIES
LIZA ALEXANDROVA-ZORINA, a prize-winning author, popular journalist, and public activist, was born in 1984 on the Kola Peninsula and settled in Moscow after graduation. She was a finalist in two important literary competitions: the Debut Prize and the NOS Literary Prize for her novel The Little Man; she also won the Northern Star Prize in 2010. Her books include The Little Man, The Rebel, The Broken Doll, and Man is a Noun. The Little Man and The Broken Doll were published in French. The Little Man was also published in English and Arabic. Critics compared The Little Man to Dostoyevsky’s Crime and Punishment and to Zvyagintsev’s prize-winning film Leviathan.
SNEŽANA MLADENOVSKA ANGJELKOV was born in 1977 in Skopje. She completed her MA in Film and Television at the Faculty of Dramatic Arts in 2012. Her first novel, Eleven Women (Ili-Ili, 2011), won the Utrinski Vesnik Award for Best Novel of the Year. She has also published True-to-Life Pictures (2014), a theory on film editing and its vital role in shaping creative documentary film with an emphasis on the documentaries of Macedonian director Vladimir Blaževski. Angjelkov has extensive experience in television editing and has creatively shaped over five hundred documentaries, reportages, travelogues. She is currently working on her new novel.
MĀRIS BĒRZINS was born in Riga in 1962 and has written nine books—novels, short stories, plays, and children’s literature. His plays have been performed in Latvian theaters, while several of his short stories have been produced as films. Bērzins’s current historical novel A Taste of Lead was adapted by the National Theatre of Latvia within a year of its publication. Due to its extensive popularity with readers, the book has been reissued several times, gained the interest of film producers, and has as well received six awards, including the Latvia Literature Prize for Best Novel of the Year and the prestigious Baltic Assembly Prize.
IANA BOUKOVA was born in Sofia in 1968. She has a degree in Classics from Sofia University. She is the author of two books of poetry, as well as the short story collection A as in Anything (2006). Her novel Journey along the Shadow was published in 2008. Iana Bukova’s poems and stories have been published in anthologies and journals in Albania, Argentina, the UK, Greece, Italy, Mexico, the US, Serbia, Hungary, France, Croatia, Sweden, and Chile.
MIKKEL BUGGE was born in 1978 in Vesterålen, just north of the Lofoten archipelago in Northern Norway. He made his debut in 2007 with the short story collection Perimeters. His first novel, Go Under Ground, was nominated for Norway’s two biggest readers’ awards and won him the Havmann Prize in 2011. His third book, the short story collection The Rope, was published in 2014 and was shortlisted for Norway’s national book award, the Brage Prize. Bugge has also written two plays for the stage. He currently lives in Oslo.
MAROSIA CASTALDI, born in 1950, is a writer and painter from Naples living in Milan. She has published numerous collections of stories and novels. Her highly lyrical and experimental work gravitates toward abstract and eternal themes like time, death, emotion, and art, as well as place and the Mediterranean. She is critically acclaimed but undoubtedly underread.
RUXANDRA CESEREANU was born in 1963 in Cluj, Romania, and is Professor at the Faculty of Letters (Department of Comparative Literature) in Cluj and member of the staff at the Center for Imagination Studies (Phantasma). Cesereanu has published eight books of poetry as well as two experimental volumes co-authored with Andrei Codrescu and Marius Conkan. Her poetry has been translated into English, Italian, and Hungarian. She has produced seven books of fiction, including the novel Tricephalos, the short story collections Nebulon and Birth of Liquid Desires, the cyberpunk novel Angelus, and her most recent novel One Sky Above All. An English translation of Angelus was published in the US in 2015. Cesereanu is also known for her research and critical writing, with seven books of non-fiction published in the first decade of this millennium.
ANN COTTEN was born in Iowa, USA, grew up in Vienna, Austria, and finished her studies with a work on concrete poetry. Her first publication, Fremdwörterbuchsonette (2007), consisted of 78 double-sonnets in a hairpin formation, which surprised the German poetry scene. This was followed by Florida-Räume and Der schaudernde Fächer (Suhrkamp), Hauptwerk. Softsoftporn (Engstler), and, in English, I, Coleoptile (Broken Dimanche Press). Her most recent works are the illustrated epic poem Verbannt! and the forthcoming English collection Lather in Heaven featuring text and photography (Broken Dimanche Press, 2016).
GAUZ was born in Abidjan, Ivory Coast, as Armand Patrick Gbaka-Brédé. He immigrated to France with a degree in biochemistry and has worked many different jobs, including as a security guard in a store. The protagonist of Gauz’s début novel Débout-payé (2014), Ossiri, is a “vigile,” or security guard, which puts him in a unique position to comment on race, consumerism, and immigration in contemporary Parisian society. The book won the Prix Lire in the “First French Novel” category as well as the first-ever literary prize attributed by Gibert Joseph, awarded in 2014. Gauz has also written the screenplay for a film about young immigrants from the Ivory Coast, Après l’Océan.
JIŘÍ HÁJÍČEK was born in 1967 and grew up in rural South Bohemia. He now lives in České Budějovice. Since the late 1990s he has published two novellas and three collections of short stories, including Vzpomínky na jednu vesničkou tancovačku (Memories of a Village Dance, 2014), from which the story in this volume is taken. Hájíček’s first novel, Dobrodruzi hlavního proudu (Mainstream Adventurers), was published in 2002. His two subsequent novels—Selský baroko (Rustic Baroque, 2005) and Rybí krev (Fish Blood, 2012)—won Magnesia Litera Prizes. Gale A. Kirking’s English translation of Rustic Baroque was published in 2012 by Real World Press. His books have appeared in English, Italian, Hungarian, Croatian, Macedonian, Belarussian, Polish, and Bulgarian, making him one of the most successful writers in the Czech Republic today.
MIKKO-PEKKA HEIKKINEN, born in 1974, is a Finnish journalist who writes serious, humorous prose about oddball residents of the hinterlands facing the pressures of the modern world—and how they pressure the modern world right back. He debuted with a collection of hilarious short stories, The Destruction of the Liquor Store in Nuorgam (Nuorgamin Alkon tuho; Johnny Kniga, 2010), from which the stories in this volume are taken. His first novel, Invasion of the Snowmobiles (Terveiset Kutturasta, 2012), was a genuine breakthrough whose incisive humor immediately won over critics and readers alike. The following novel, Bullheaded (Jääräpää, 2014), also became an admired bestseller. The film rights to his fourth work, Reindeer Mafia (Poromafia, 2016), were optioned already prior to publication.
PHILIP HUFF was born in 1984 and graduated from the University of Amsterdam. He is the author of the novels Days of Grass (2009), The Empty City (2012), and Book of the Dead (2014); the short story collection Good to be Here (2013); and the essay collection The Sadness of Others. Huff won the DJP Literary Award and the Hollands Maandblad Prize for Prose. He wrote the screenplays for three films: Days of Grass (2011), based on his debut novel, Greenland (2015), based on a short story, and the forthcoming The Empty C
ity (2017), directed by Michiel van Erp. He lives in New York City.
JONATHAN HUSTON is a writer, translator, and creative writing teacher living in Liechtenstein and Los Angeles, writing in German and English. His collection of German short stories, Mondstaub – Erzählungen, was published in March 2016 by the Van Eck Verlag, Liechtenstein, and presented at the Leipzig Book Fair. His short fiction has appeared or is forthcoming in publications in Liechtenstein, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, and the United States, including the Jahrbuch des Literaturhauses Liechtenstein, the Dreck hält warm – Grüsse aus dem Unterholz catalog of the Kunstverein Schichtwechsel, the Future Reloaded anthology of the Collegium Helveticum, and the literary magazines Jupiter, Origins, Cicada, and Quiddity. He can be found at jonathanhuston.com.
KARMELE JAIO, born in Vitoria-Gasteiz in 1970, has written three collections of stories: Hamabost zauri (Fifteen Wounds, 2004), Zu bezain ahul (As Weak As You, 2007) and Ez naiz ni (Not Me, 2012); two novels: Amaren eskuak (My Mother’s Hands, 2006) and Musika airean (Music in the Air, 2010); and a book of poetry, Orain hilak ditugu (2015). The novel Amaren eskuak, which was very well received by Basque readers and has received a 2016 English PEN Translates award, has also been adapted for the screen and was presented at the San Sebastián International Film Festival. Her stories have also been adapted for the theater and published in many anthologies.
IDA JESSEN is one of Denmark’s most acclaimed and popular writers, having authored a score of novels, short story collections, and children’s books since publishing her first book in 1989. A recipient of the Lifetime Award of the Danish Arts Foundation, she has twice been nominated for the prestigious Nordic Council Literature Prize, most recently in 2014 for her collection Postcard to Annie. Her latest novel, En ny tid (A Change of Time), will be published in the USA by Archipelago Books.
STÉPHANE LAMBERT, born in Brussels in 1974, is a poet (The Penis and the Hand; The Garden, the Earthquake; Chapel of Nothingness), novelist (The Man of Marble; The Colors of the Night; Paris: City of the Dead), and essayist (Farewell to the Countryside: Claude Monet’s Water Lilies; Mark Rothko: Dreaming of Not Being; Nicolas de Staël: Faith and Vertigo). The major themes running through his works are desire, the body, the family, death, the chaos of the contemporary world, and artistic creation. In 2016, critics warmly embraced his book Before Godot, which examines the link between a painting by Caspar David Friedrich and Beckett’s celebrated play.
DAVID MACHADO was born in Lisbon in 1978. He is the author of three novels, Deixem Falar as Pedras, O Fabuloso Teatro do Gigante and Índice Médio de Felicidade (European Union Prize for Literature, 2015), the last of which will be adapted for film and translated into about a dozen languages. He has authored several prizewinning collections of short stories for children. His books are published in Italy, France, Brazil, and Morocco.
DAITHÍ Ó MUIRÍ is the author of five collections of short stories: Seacht Lá na nDíleann, Uaigheanna agus Scéalta Eile, Cogaí, Ceolta, and Litríochtaí. He was awarded the Cló Iar-Chonnacht Literary Prize in 2001 for Cogaí. He is the author of one novel, Ré. He lives in Connemara, Ireland.
GIOVANNI ORELLI, born in 1928, is a central figure in Swiss-Italian letters. He is the author of more than a dozen novels, as well as several books of poetry, and he has long been active in the cultural sphere of Ticino. In 1997, he was awarded the Gottfried Keller Prize. His novel Walaschek’s Dream was published in English translation by Dalkey Archive Press in 2012. His most recent work is the short story collection I mirtilli del Moléson, published in 2014 by Nino Aragno.
ELENA PENGA was born in Thessaloniki. She studied theater and philosophy at Wesleyan University and screen and theater writing at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles. Three collections of her short stories have been published by Agra, one of Greece’s best-known literary publishers. Tight Belts and Other Skin is the winner of the Ouranis Prize from the Greek Academy of Letters (2012). Her plays were first staged in New York’s Off-Off Broadway scene in the 1980s. Since Penga returned to Greece in the 1990s, her plays have been extensively translated and performed in Greece and elsewhere. She also wrote the screenplay for Lakis Papastathis’s award-winning film The Only Journey of his Life. She teaches playwriting and lives in Athens.
SVEN POPOVIĆ was born in 1989 in Zagreb, now located in Croatia, but back then in Yugoslavia. His short stories were published in the anthology of young Croatian writers Bez vrata, bez kucanja (2012), in the short story collection Record Stories (2011), and in various magazines and webzines like Quorum, Zarez, and Arteist. He has contributed as a freelance journalist to a number of magazines like Zarez, Aktual, and the Austrian leftist magazine Wespennest, as well as writing literary and album reviews for various webzines. His collection of short stories The Sky Is in the Gutter came out in 2014 and received excellent reviews.
TERESA PRÄAUER is an Austrian fiction writer, essayist, and visual artist. She is the author of the novels Johnny und Jean (2014) and Für den Herrscher aus Übersee (For the Emperor from Overseas), which won the Aspekte Literature Prize for best German-language prose debut of 2012. In 2015, she received Droste and Hölderlin promotional awards, and was shortlisted for the Leipzig Book Fair Prize. In fall 2016, she will release her third novel, Oh Schimmi. She regularly publishes on the subjects of poetry, theater, pop culture, and fine arts. She is currently a Samuel Fischer Guest Professor of Literature in Berlin and in spring 2017 will be a writer-in-residence at Grinnell College.
WAYNE PRICE was born in South Wales but has lived and worked in Scotland for many years. He has won or been shortlisted for many international short story awards, including the Bridport, the William Trevor/Elizabeth Bowen, Glimmer Train, the Sean Ó Faoláin, and the Raymond Carver Prizes. His first short story collection, Furnace (Freight, 2012), was long-listed for the Frank O’Connor Prize and nominated for the Scottish First Book of the Year Award; a novel, Mercy Seat, was published by Freight Books in 2015, and his recent pamphlet collection of poetry, Fossil Record (Smith|Doorstop), is a Laureate’s Choice. He teaches at the University of Aberdeen.
UNDINĖ RADZEVIČIŪTĖ, born in 1967, is a Lithuanian writer who is known for her intellectual black humor, her use of multilayered texts, her fusing together of East and West, as well as her mixing of the philosophical with the mundane. She graduated from the Vilnius Academy of Arts where she studied art history, theory and criticism, and after four years she left her doctoral studies for a job in an international advertising agency. She worked as a creative director in a worldwide network of advertising agencies for over a decade. In 2003, 2011, 2013, and 2015 her books were shortlisted for the Most Creative Book of the Year Award (Lithuania). In 2011 and 2013 her books were shortlisted for the Best Book of the Year Award (Lithuania). Her fourth book, Fishes and Dragons, won the 2015 EU Prize for Literature.
CARLOS ROBLES LUCENA was born in 1977 in Terrassa, Spain, and holds a degree in Humanities Studies from the Universitat Pompeu Fabra in Barcelona. He works as a teacher of Spanish Language and Literature in the Aula Escola Europea. His short stories have appeared in such magazines as Quimera, The Barcelona Review, and Bonsái. His first book of short stories, No Pregunten por Gagarin (Don’t Ask for Gagarín), is published by Ténemos Edicions.
ZSUZSA SELYEM is a novelist, critic, translator, and Associate Professor of twentieth-century Hungarian literature and literary theory at Babes-Bolyai University, Cluj, Romania. One of the most important experimental voices of mid-generation Hungarian fiction, she has published two volumes of short stories, a novel, and five volumes of criticism to date. Her 2006 novel 9 Kilos (Story about Psalm 119) was translated into German and French. Several of her short stories can be read in English translation in The Missing Slate. “Confectionery 1952” is part of Selyem’s forthcoming volume, Becási, consisting of self-standing short stories which together make up a highly unusual family history, mostly narrated from non-human points of view and embedded in the traumatic history of communist Romania.
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br /> MAJA GAL ŠTROMAR, writer and actress, was born in 1969 in Slovenia. She studied Italian, French, and acting at the Jacques Lecoq International Theatre School in Paris. Her literary works so far include three collections of short stories: Goga 66000, Na Predpomlad Mi Reci Ti (Call Me By My First Name Before Springtime), and Že Češnječas (It’s Cherry Time); five novels: Amygdala’s Heart, Lju.beznica ali Svetloba po dekretu (Little Love or Light by Decree), Misli name, ko ti je lepo (Think of Me in the Good Times), Potaknjenci (Cuttings), 7kg do sreče (7kg to Happiness); a theatrical monodrama, Alma Ajka, published in Slovene and Arabic at the Biblioteca Alessandrina in Egypt; a poetry collection, Boginja z zamudo / Dea in ritardo (Belated Godess), published in Italy with an audio CD; an educational manual on theater, Črkolandija (Letterland); and the charity story “Anina zvezdica” (Anna’s Little Star). Maja has also written many plays for children and adults and several radio plays broadcast by Radio Slovenia and the Italian National Broadcaster RAI.
AGNIESZKA TABORSKA has published seventeen books in Poland; some have been translated into English, French, German, Spanish, Japanese, or Korean. Her titles include essay collections: Conspirators of Imagination: Surrealism, Topor’s Alphabet, and American Crumbs; short story collections: The Whale, or Objective Chance and Not as in Paradise; and literary mystifications: The Dreaming Life of Leonora de la Cruz (Midmarch Arts Press, 2007) and The Unfinished Life of Phoebe Hicks. Her books have won awards in Germany. The Black Imp and Other Sprites won the award for Best Polish Children’s Book of 2014. Agnieszka Taborska has translated novels by Spalding Gray, Roland Topor, Giselle Prassinos, and Philippe Soupault.
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