Knots of Wonder: Stunning Short Fiction

David Hayden, Michael Holtmann, Matsatsugo Ono, Gunnhild Øyehaug

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Short stories and novellas are like knots: compact on the surface, but containing intricately woven ideas that, when unraveled, point to something much larger. How do writers do it? These three authors are world-class exemplars of the form: Norwegian short story writer Gunnhild Oyehaug, who can “produce stabs of emotion, unexpected ghost notes of feeling, from pieces so short and offbeat that they seem at first like aborted arias” (in a profile of her by The New Yorker); Irish writer David Hayden, whose short stories The Guardian calls “brilliantly disturbing and unclassifiable”; and, coming to us from Japan, Masatsugu Ono, whose jewel-like novella mixes the surreal with the profound in a story of a shy, traumatized boy overcoming the shame, anger, and sadness that silence him.

Sponsored by the Center for the Art of Translation, with additional support from the Norway House Foundation, NORLA - Norwegian Literature Abroad, Culture Ireland, and Transit Books