Short fiction is incredibly hard to write. All the more reason to ooh and aah over every great short story, whether published in a literary journal or as a collection. I have a personal fascination with the linked short story, though that’s for my own writing purposes.
About a year ago, this towering stack of books represented every short story collection still in my to-be-read pile. For an author like Mavis Gallant, I bought a collection of all her work. For a debutante like Dieuwke Van Turenhout, I snatched up a copy of her short story collection that launched just a few days ago.
Since then, I’ve been working hard to read as much short-form fiction as I do the long-form. I now have enough reviews that I must make order out of this chaos. So here, by continent, is a list of my short-form fiction reviews, which now includes a separate category for novellas.
Americas
Interstitial Spaces: Can’t and Won’t by Lydia Davis
Original Sin: This Is How You Lose Her by Junot Díaz
By the Seashore: The Shell Collector by Anthony Doerr
The Art of the Story: The Art of the Story edited by Daniel Halpern
Talk Story: This Is Paradise by Kristiana Kahakauwila
Ribbons: Her Body & Other Parties by Carmen Maria Machado
Empty Pasture in Afternoon: The Tsar of Love and Techno by Anthony Marra
Vietnam: The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien
Fractured Fairy Tales: You Know You Want This by Kristen Roupenian
Red Stick Festival: Buckskin Cocaine by Erika Wurth
asia
Kawaakari: Palm-of-the-Hand Stories by Kawabata Yasunari
No Heroes: Drifting House by Krys Lee
Ghost City: Hong Kong Noir edited by Jason Y. Ng and Susan Blumberg-Kason
Carrots & Kiwis: Revenge by Yoko Ogawa
New Vietnam: Wild Mustard: Voices from New Vietnam edited by Charles Waugh, Nguyen Lien, and Van Gia
europe
Judge Dee: The Chinese Nail Murders by Robert van Gulik
German Fables: The Marquise of O– and Other Stories by Heinrich von Kleist
Irish Rovers: Mothers and Sons by Colm Tóibín
Quiet Desperation: Last Stories by William Trevor
Circus Animals: Olifanten warm houden by Dieuwke van Turenhout
oceania
A Little Savage: The Collected Stories of Katherine Mansfield by Katherine Mansfield
Wicked: This Taste for Silence by Amanda O’Callaghan
novellas
Another Singapore: If I Could Tell You by Jing-Jing Lee