North Station

Suah Bae

Summary

"Bae dissolves conventional ¬linear narrative, as though it were impossible for cause and effect to exist concurrently with such repression." —Joanna Walsh, The National
A writer struggles to come to terms with the death of her beloved mentor; the staging of an experimental play goes awry; time freezes for two lovers on a platform, waiting for the train that will take one of them away; a woman living in a foreign country discovers she has been issued the wrong ID.
Emotionally haunting and intellectually stimulating, the seven stories in North Station represent the range and power of Bae Suah's distinctive voice and style, which delights in digressions, multiple storylines, and sudden ruptures of societal norms. Heavily influenced by the German authors she's read and translated, Bae's stories combine elements of Korean and European storytelling in a way that's unforgettable and mesmerizing.
Bae Suah, one of the most highly acclaimed contemporary Korean authors, has published more than a dozen short story collections and novels, and has won a number of prestigious awards. She has also translated several books from the German, including works by W. G. Sebald, Franz Kafka, and Jenny Erpenbeck. Her novel Nowhere to Be Found was longlisted for the PEN Translation Prize and the Best Translated Book Awards.
Deborah Smith has translated two other books by Bae (Recitation and A Greater Music) and won the Man Booker International Prize for her translation of Han Kang's The Vegetarian. She is the founder of Tilted Axis Press.

Available since: 09/18/2017.

Other books that might interest you

In the Mist

Mary E Penn

It is a delicious literary irony that Mary E Penn, a writer of ghost, crime and mystery short stories during the Victorian era, is a complete enigma. 
 
Al that remain of her life are the 29 or so stories that were published or attributed to her. 
 
‘In the Mist’ is set in the county of Cornwall.  When two lovers jealously quarrel the result appears to end in murder.  But what exactly did happen…..?

Show book

To Be a Pilgrim

John Bunyan

From John Bunyan's classic, The Pilgrim's Progress, we find the poem To Be a Pilgrim, an inspiring reminder of who we are in Christ. This was the weekly poem for March 8-15, 2015. - Summary by Esther ben Simonides

Show book

The Snow Bridge and Other Stories

Philip Chatting

The settings of the stories in The Snow Bridge and Other Stories are drawn from a life spent in many countries. Several focus intently on a particular relationship: that between a husband and wife, mother and daughter, brothers, friends, partners, climbing-buddies, employer and employee; the relationship with an inner self; putative relationships that never quite begin, and relationships with a location, or the inhabitants of a small town. Other stories explore the long-term expatriate’s dilemma of engaging with a place not his or her own at the price of diminishing intimacy with the country of his or her birth. Described in Philip Chatting’s, ‘Author’s Introduction’, as, “entertainment”, the impact of the collection may prompt readers to reflect on the nature of their own relationships and the place we each occupy in our own worlds.“Philip Chatting is a master stylist…. He invests himself in the traumatic conflict, character identification, and ethical complication that sit at the heart of the heart of necessary and affecting social fiction.”--Jason S Polley (from his 'Advance Response' to 'The Snow Bridge and Other Stories')“The range of locations and…variety of characters…rarely come together in a single volume…. A unique collection reflecting the author’s varied history and his interests in the countries and cultures of the people among whom he has lived and travelled. It will appeal to those who share or would like to share similar experiences, as well as those who are curious to know about them.”--Mike Rowse (from his 'Preface' to 'The Snow Bridge and Other Stories')

Show book

Damon Runyon Theater - All Horse...

Damon Runyon

The Damon Runyon Theatre Hour.  Damon Runyon is acknowledged as one of the great writers to come out of twentieth century America.  Runyon's short stories are almost always told in the first person by a narrator who is never named, and whose role is unclear; he knows many gangsters and has no job that can be gleaned from his musings, nor does he admit to any criminal involvement; He’s a bystander, an observer, an average street-corner Joe.  Runyon described himself as "being known to one and all as a guy who is just around".  That line seems to say a lot about Runyon and his life.  It was like you were with him on some street corner hustle or some shady dive and he was filling you in on all the angles, all the gossip, all of life. He was who so many people wanted to be with……or so many people wanted to be.  Of course, the cliché about newspapermen and writers is that they are heavy drinkers, chain-smokers, gamblers and obsessively chase women with a sideline in the gathering of stories and facts and actually getting something written just before the deadline hits. That seems like Damon Runyon and his life summed up in one sentence.  His stories became legendary ways of looking that bit differently at America, of soaking up the atmosphere of a glamorous and rip-roaring age and distilling it into a black and white type or, in our case, The Damon Runyon Theatre Hour.

Show book

Classic Short Stories - Volume...

Sapper, Jerome K. Jerome

Stories are one of mankind’s greatest artistic achievements.  Whether written down or spoken they have an ability to capture our imagination and thoughts, and take us on incredible journeys in the space of a phrase and the turn of a page. 
 
Within a few words of text or speech, new worlds and characters form, propelling a narrative to a conclusion with intricate ease. Finely crafted, perfectly formed these Miniature Masterpieces, at first thought, seem remarkably easy to conjure up. But ask any writer and they will tell you that distilling the essence of narrative and characters into a short story is one of the hardest acts of their literary craft.  Many attempt, but few achieve.

Show book

The Manet Girl

Charles Boyle

The stories in The Manet Girl explore sexual relations – from both male and female points of view – in the present, but sometimes with a backdrop of several decades. Stories of desire and confusion – other men and other women – sit alongside stories of art – galleries, studios, allusions to painters – which gets in the way as least as often as it illuminates. Choices are made, in the knowledge that distractions may be the most important things of all.

Show book