Best European Fiction 2011

by Aleksandar Hemon (Editor), Colum McCann (Preface by)

Overview

The launch of Dalkey's Best European Fiction series was nothing short of phenomenal, with wide-ranging coverage in international media such as Time magazine, the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Chicago Tribune, Financial Times, and the Guardian; glowing reviews and interviews in print and online magazines such as the Believer, Bookslut, Paste, and the Huffington Post; radio interviews with editor Aleksandar Hemon on NPR stations in the US and BBC Radio 3 and 4 in the UK; and a terrific response from booksellers, who made Best European Fiction 2010 an "Indie Next" pick and created table displays and special promotions throughout the US and UK.

For 2011, Aleksandar Hemon is back as editor, along with a new preface by Colum McCann, and with a whole new cast of authors and stories, including work from countries not included in Best European Fiction 2010.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781564786678
Publisher:	Dalkey Archive Press
Publication date:	11/22/2010
Series:	Best European Fiction
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	544
File size:	789 KB

About the Author

Aleksandar Hemon is the author of The Question of Bruno, Nowhere Man, and The Lazarus Project, which was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award in 2008. Born in Sarajevo, Hemon visited Chicago in 1992, intending to stay for several months. While there, Sarajevo came under siege, and he was unable to return home. Hemon wrote his first story in English in 1995. He was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2003 and a “Genius Grant” from the MacArthur Foundation in 2004. He lives in Chicago with his wife and daughter.

Editorial Reviews

" Best European Fiction is an exhilarating read."-- Time

Dalkey Archive Press

From the Publisher

The underlying assumption of Best European Fiction 2011, edited by the Bosnian-born, Chicago-based writer Aleksandar Hemon, is that such a thing is indeed taking shape, in spite of longstanding cultural, linguistic and political barriers. But rather than spell out what he calls “the confrontational forms this ‘European’ writing assumed,” Mr. Hemon prefers to let the 40 stories that make up this anthology make their own argument indirectly.
—The New York Times

Larry Rohter

With authors ranging from the familiar (Hilary Mantel) to the obscure (Macedonia's Blaze Minevski) to the internationally acclaimed but underappreciated in the U.S.A. (Spain's Enrique Vila-Matas; Hungary's László Krasznahorkai; Poland's Olga Tokarczuk), the second volume of this lauded series makes good on the first's promise. Zurab Lezhava's "Sex for Fridge" is the madcap story of a Georgian woman who tries to trade her body for a discount on a run-down refrigerator. Iulian Ciocan's "Auntie Frosea" takes as its depressing protagonist an impoverished Moldovan housewife whose only knowledge of the world outside her village comes from the beamed-in Brazilian soap opera she's addicted to. There's also plenty of Euro-surrealism: Olga Tokarczuk's haunting "The Ugliest Woman in the World" tells the story of a man who marries and has kids with a rather unbecoming woman, while László Krasznahorkai's "The Bill" is a nine-page, one-sentence meditation on the zone between male desire and possession. With stories from Montenegro, Cyprus, and even tiny Liechtenstein aside works from Turkey, Estonia, and most of Western Europe, this edition packs both a stylistic punch and a satisfying range. (Nov.)

Publishers Weekly

Best European Fiction 2011 is the second in what, with any luck, could turn out to be an annual series.... it is easy to appreciate what Mr. Hemon calls 'the depth and width and beauty of human experience' represented here.”

Larry Rohter - The New York Times

In only its second year, this series has become one of the most vital literary anthologies around. A whole new group of authors, introduced by editor Hemon and Irish novelist Colum McCann, is on hand to "draw the border line, then step beyond it." This year's installment increases the number of countries represented from 30 to 37 (Belarus, Cyprus, Germany, and Montenegro are among the new additions) and arranges the stories in reverse alphabetical order by country. The anthology remains best suited for browsing and cherry-picking a story or two at a time, however, so the order is inconsequential. Highlights for 2011 include a darkly comic clash of cultures by Lucian Dan Teodorovici of Romania, the musings of a Soviet female clown by Anita Konkka of Finland, a literary mystery set in an army barracks by Drago Jancar of Slovenia, and explorative feminist fiction by Verena Stefan of Switzerland. VERDICT The quality of the stories is again uniformly excellent, so readers should not be deterred by the lack of household names. A powerful story by England's Hilary Mantel (Wolf Hall) is the primary exception and provides a good entry point. Greece and Sweden remain absent, the latter a missed opportunity to introduce American readers to an alternative to Stieg Larsson. Maybe next year.—Forest Turner, Suffolk Cty. House of Correction Lib., Boston

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