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Books

Elegiac and exuberant: short stories from Philip Hensher and Helen Oyeyemi

The master of precision and the ebullient fabulist — though very different writers — are highly recommended reading

28 May 2016

9:00 AM

28 May 2016

9:00 AM

Tales of Persuasion Philip Hensher

Fourth Estate, pp.316, £14.99, ISBN: 9780007459636

What is Not Yours is Not Yours Helen Oyeyemi

Helen Oyeyemi, pp.273, £14.99, ISBN: 9781447299363

Discussions about the short story too often fall into a false dichotomy that can be characterised, in essence, by a quibble over a consonant. Carver or Carter? On the surface, it would be easy to present Philip Hensher as the Raymond Carver-like elegiac naturalist, giving glimpses of disappointed lives and misunderstood epiphanies, and Helen Oyeyemi as the Angela Carter-ish exuberant fabulist, all giddy metamorphoses and yarns within tales within stories.

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