Colin Barrett, Joseph O'Neill and Mary O'Donoghue are among the writers from four continents who make up the 19-strong longlist for this year's Sunday Times EFG Short Story Award. The longlist includes two Man Booker longlistees – Netherland author O'Neill and Whitbread winner Mark Haddon – two Guardian first book award-winners (Young Skins author Barrett and Yiyun Li, also a Frank O'Connor International Short Story Award winner) and two Costa finalists (Erin Soros and Louise Doughty). O'Donoghue won The Irish Times Legends of the Fall short story prize in 2013.
At £30,000 for the winner, this is the world’s richest prize for a single short story, and regularly attracts talent from around the world. This year’s longlist again reflects its global scope, including Caine prizewinner Rotimi Babatunde from Nigeria, New Zealander Paula Morris, two Canadians, six British writers and six from the US. No British writer has yet won the prize - Kevin Barry won three years ago. Thirteen of the longlist are women.
Now in its sixth year, the award has a reputation for showcasing new writers. This year Julianne Pachico, still at UEA, makes the list with her story Lucky, alongside Welsh writer Rebecca F John, whose debut collection Clown's Shoes is not published until later this year by Parthian.
The themes and locations of the stories selected are as diverse as the authors, stretching from pregnancy and birth to disease and death; cancer, mental illness and recovery; the legacies ancestors leave behind, whether physical or emotional; sibling love and loss; the challenges of long-term friendship and clashes of cultures.
The 19 longlisted writers and the titles of their short stories are:
The Indian Uprising by Ann Beattie
The Collected Tricks of Houdini by Rotimi Babatunde
The Ways by Colin Barrett
Fat White Cop with Ginger Eyebrows by Louise Doughty
Qualities of the Modern Farmer by Emily Franklin
The Pier Falls by Mark Haddon
The Glove Maker’s Numbers by Rebecca F. John
A Sheltered Woman by Yiyun Li
Hungry by Elizabeth McCracken
False River by Paula Morris
Interstellar Space by Scott O’Connor
Jules Verne Seeks Dreamers for Long-Distance Travel in Time by Mary O’Donoghue
The Referees by Joseph O’Neill
Lucky by Julianne Pachico
After the War, Before the War by David Peace
Holiday by Mona Simpson
Still Water, BC by Erin Soros
The Spiders of Stockholm by E. J. Swift
The Wedding Cake by Madeleine Thien
The winner will receive £30,000, and the five other shortlisted writers will each receive £1,000. The shortlist will be announced in The Sunday Times on March 1st. The winner will be announced at a gala dinner at Stationer’s Hall in London on Friday, April 24th. For the first time this year, readers can also read the longlisted stories on the Sunday Times website thesundaytimes.co.uk/books.
Previous winners have included two Pulitzer prizewinners - US author Adam Johnson (2014), and US-Dominican author Junot Diaz (2013) - Kevin Barry from Ireland (2012), US author Anthony Doerr (2011) and CK Stead from New Zealand (2010)
Shortlisted authors have included Elizabeth Strout, Hilary Mantel, Emma Donoghue, David Vann, Mark Haddon, Gerard Woodward, Toby Litt, Ali Smith and Cynan Jones.
Colin Barrett’s debut collection of short stories, Young Skins, was first published by Stinging Fly in Ireland in 2013. Young Skins won the 2014 Frank O’Connor International short story prize, the Rooney Prize for Irish literature, and the 2014 Guardian First Book Award. His stories have been published individually in the Stinging Fly magazine, Five Dials, A Public Space and The New Yorker.
Mary O’Donoghue’s short stories have been widely published in the USA and Ireland. She is currently completing her first short story collection. Her first novel, Before the House Burns, was published by Lilliput Press in 2010 and described by Anne Enright as ‘[E]lectric, real, and utterly modern’. She is also a poet and translator. Her writing awards include the Irish Times Legends of the Fall prize for short fiction responding to Ireland’s economic crisis. She grew up in Co. Clare and now lives in Tuscaloosa, Alabama.
Joseph O’Neill is an Irish barrister living in New York. He is the author of the novels This Is the Life, The Breezes and Netherland which won the 2009 PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction and the 2009 Kerry Fiction Prize, was shortlisted for 2010 IMPAC prize and longlisted for 2008 Booker Prize, as well as a memoir, Blood-Dark Track. His short stories include Goose (New Irish Short Stories, 2011), The World of Cheese (Harper’s magazine, 2009) and The Death of Billy Joel (Faber Book of Best New Irish Short Stories, 2007). Joseph’s latest novel, The Dog, was longlisted for the 2014 Man Booker Prize and nominated for 2015 Folio Prize.
