Closure : Contemporary Black British Short Stories

We have always valued the short story as a way to make sense of the world, and our place in it. This anthology by leading Black and Asian British writers is filled with stories, which, like life, rarely end in the way we might expect...

JACOB ROSS, KADIJA SESAY, SENI SENEVIRATNE, LEONE ROSS, DESIREE REYNOLDS, SAI MURRAY, RAMAN MUNDAIR, BERNARDINE EVARISTO, MONICA ALI, DINESH ALLIRAJAH, MULI AMAYE, LYNNE E. BLACKWOOD, JUDITH BRYAN, JACQUELINE CLARKE, JACQUELINE CROOKS, FRED D''AGUIAR, SYLVIA DICKINSON, GAYLENE GOULD, MICHELLE INNISS, VALDA JACKSON, PETE KALU, PATRICE LAWRENCE, JENNIFER NANSUBUGA MAKUMBI, TARIQ MEHMOOD, CHANTAL OAKES, KAREN ONOJAIFE, KOYE OYEDEJI, LOUISA ADJOA PARKER, HANA RIAZ, AKILA RICHARDS, AYESHA SIDDIQI, MAHSUDA SNAITH

The standout feature of Closure is its richness – of styles, forms, themes, and ways of telling that display a keen awareness of the contemporary short story while exploiting the suppleness of the form to serve the imaginative needs of the writer. The richness is also in the tremendous array of moods and levels of intensity of these stories. Raw realism gives way to pure lyricism; the fanciful rubs shoulders with the speculative.

There is trauma and humour; tenderness and transgression. These narratives are about our humanity: the ways in which we do and do not love, unrequited yearnings, the quiet unstated violence in our lives, the way we obscure loneliness, and of course the precious moments of jubilation.

Jacob Ross has Judged the Scott Moncrieff Translation, the VS Pritchett and Tom Gallon prizes. He co-edited Voice, Memory, Ashes; Riding and Rising, and Turf and co-authored with Kwesi Owusu, Behind the Masquerade: The Story of Notting Hill Carnival. He is also the author of two short story collections, Song for Simone, and A Way to Catch the Dust.