The Best Short Stories 2022: The O. Henry Prize Winners by Valeria Luiselli

The Best Short Stories 2022: The O. Henry Prize Winners Reviews

• 
  Amy

  [4.5 stars, rounded down]
  
  I purchased this collection on a whim while stuck in the ice-cold, bustling halls of Frankfurt Main Station, looking for warmth and comfort in the local bookstore, and I am very glad I did. The lovely Foreword and Introduction by Jenny Minton Quigley and Valeria Luiselli say it best when they point out how a lot of this collection tells stories that sharpen our empathy, that offer a glimpse into the complex life of a stranger. The diversity in the countries of origin of these stories and resulting diversity in style add to this sense of an expanding of horizons, and as somebody who has recently developed a newfound appreciation for the art of translation, the respect and interest this collection (or more specifically: its editors) have for the craft delighted and inspired me. While I did not love every single story in this collection, I always found something that intrigued or gripped me. My personal favourites were “The Wolves of Circassia”, “Apples”, and “Warp and Weft”, the latter two of which featured some of the most moving and striking musings on love, humanity, and death I have come across in a while. My search for warmth and comfort that led me to this collection was finished when I turned the last page.
• 
  Sonya

  Four and a half stars.
  
  "Best of" short story anthologies are generally comprised of work from a particular year that has been selected by the editor and then narrowed to the stories that will be published by a guest judge. In this collection, however, the collection is highly curated by Valeria Luiselli and features specific themes, much of it about the beginnings of Covid, and highlights ten stories in translation from Spanish, Russian, Norwegian, Polish, Hebrew, Bengali, and Greek authors.
  
  There are surprises in mood and tone; a couple of the stories are absurdist and a couple of them are about writing and storytelling themselves. There is an amazing/puzzling/thrilling/grotesque long form story about two characters who meet during the fall of the Soviets (Horse Soup) that I'm not sure I completely understood but was riveted by. And there is new work by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie about ghosting and a Covid-set family story by Lorrie Moore. I am inspired to read more of some of these writers' works. This is one of the best anthologies I've read.
• 
  Jacob Williams

  I wondered whether in the final moments a dying person said, "So this is death," or did they say, "So that was life"? - Lorrie Moore, "Face Time"

  
  Many of these are forgettable, but some are pretty good.
  
  Francisco González's "Clean Teen" is a well-written and depressing story of a privileged woman abusing an adolescent boy from the poor, minority community she teaches in.
  
  Samanta Schweblin's "An Unlucky Man" also deals with child abuse. It's deeply uncomfortable to read, as you watch events unfold slowly from the perspective of a girl who is oblivious to their sinister implications.
  
  Michel Nieva's "Dengue Boy" follows a child with a distressing set of mutations: he's essentially an anthropomorphized mosquito. Stories about growing up different from everyone else - or learning to love a child who is different from what you expected - are a common trope, but this takes it to quite an extreme.
  
  I was happy to encounter Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's name again after reading her story "The Thing Around Your Neck" in
  another collection. Her entry in this collection, "Zikora", follows a woman who is abruptly dumped from a previously wonderful relationship when she announces that she is pregnant. Among other things, it's a cautionary tale about the importance of explicit, unambiguous communication about anything important.
  
  In Eshkol Nevo's "Lemonade", a woman's shitty husband and the economic stress of the pandemic persuade her to make porn for some extra income. This goes wrong in a disturbing, unanticipated way.
  
  The protagonist of 'Pemi Aguda's "Breastmilk" tries to reconcile her willingness to forgive her husband for cheating and her desire to be as fierce and uncompromosing as her feminist activist mother.
  
  Amar Mitra's "The Old Man of Kusumpur" is a little fable about a man embarking on a dubious religious quest.
  
  Yohanca Delgado's "The Little Widow from the Capital" is told in the first-person plural: the women in a tight-knight community of immigrants from the Dominican Republican pry into the life of a new arrival.
  
  Daniel Mason's "The Wolves of Circassia" made me smile with its sweet friendship between a young boy and his dementia-afflicted grandfather.
  
  Vladimir Sorokin's "Horse Soup" sucked me in with its bizarre setup - a man who derives obscene pleasure from watching others eat. For such a long story, though, I would have liked more to be explained.
  
  (crossposted from
  https://brokensandals.net/reviews/202...)
• 
  Sumit

  So many brilliant and excellent stories. My absolute favorite was Gunnhild Oyehaug's "Apples" for its incredible, dizzying jumps in perspective from character to author to reader. David Ryan's "Warp and Weft" was also very memorable with it's weaving together of so many disparate stories. Others worthy of mention are Samanta Schweblins' "An Unlucky Man," Eshkol Nevo's "Lemonade," Joseph O'Neill's "Rainbows," and Daniel Mason's "The Wolves of Circassia."
• 
  Janet

  For me, the gems in this volume are:
  The Wolves of Circassia by Daniel Mason
  The Little Widow from the Capital by Yohanca Delgado
  Face Time by Lorrie Moore
  and especially Breastmilk by 'Pemi Aguda
• 
  Sophie Newman

  Great to read so much work in translation
• 
  Lizzie Koschnick

  Different, but great. My attention span has been rather short lately, probably because all I do is watch TikTok but oh well. This compilation of stories was perfect for helping that problem and I found that I really do love short stories, sometimes.
  The thing about short stories is that sometimes they are very simple and easy to understand but then there are really strange ones and you are left at the end asking like "Wtf did I just read?"
  Nevertheless, the one that really stuck out and made reading the whole thing very worth it was "Warp and Weft" by David Ryan. It was about how certain moments can lead to other moments and that people's lives are more interconnected that we know. I appreciated how short but profound it was. Very simple stuff, but what a great message. I highly recommend reading it and its so short and a quick google search will pull the whole thing up.
  I don't think short stories get enough credit. I feel like they are, in some ways, better at getting across a message and a lot easier to read for people. I feel like more people would read if they started out reading short stories. Also... a quick way to learn about other people's cultures pretty in depth. A lot of the stories in this compilation were translated from other countries and I thought that was pretty cool. Learned a lot of interesting things in a short span and in short bursts.
  The only thing I would say that I don't appreciate about this book of stories is I kind of wish there were little blurbs a the end of the stories in which the authors explained the contents. Some were so obscure I wish I grasped what the stories were about. But I guess that would ruin the point, right?
  
  Fave quote!
  “And what is a stranger anyway? Aren’t we all, forever?”
• 
  Taylor

  My first real honest dip into reading some short stories- was a neat collection! I’m looking forward to trying some more sci-fi type ones as well vs more realistic fiction. Lemonade, Breastmilk, clean teen, dengue boy, and zikora were some of my favorites.
• 
  Katie Coleman

  Mixed bag here. I didn't enjoy the pandemic stories here really at all. I don't know if it's too soon — or rather I think that while the pandemic itself is interesting we haven't really found a way to write about it in a way that is interesting for us who lived through it. My favorite stories were most often the works in translation. I loved that Luiselli focused on works in translation and diversity of perspectives and literary traditions when editing. I was definitely exposed to a lot of different writers and ways of storytelling in this collection, which was enough to make it a worthwhile read.
• 
  Taylor Ann Ono

  My favorite story in this book is Horse Soup. There are a couple stories in this collection that I loved that made me give it three stars, but overall, I was disappointed with the collection. A lot of the stories were about Covid, which is a reality, but I didn’t want to read about it so much. I also was confused because I realized that all of the stories were originally published in 2020-2021, not 2022. So that was weird to me.
• 
  Brianna

  “And in this moment, she stands there in the garden, a tree in waiting, something that will grow, blossom, bear fruit, lose fruit, lose her leaves, be covered in snow, etc., with an astonishing patience and the peace that is particular to apple trees.” - from Apples
  
  “It is a worthwhile life. It is a worthwhile body, too.” - from Rainbows
  
  “Time before him, she forgets it now, like this dream, in waking.” - from Warp and Weft
  
  “love had to feel like hunger to be true” - from Zikora
• 
  Jennifer

  It was really interesting to read short fiction from so many of my favorite authors- and to have so many works in translation in this edition. Some of the stories will stick with me for quite some time! I did not really enjoy the pandemic stories, though I can understand their inclusion. I found the works in translation to be the most varied and interesting of the bunch. 4 stars for keeping me guessing and reading, and for the diversity of voices.
• 
  Katie Oon

  really stunning collection, still thinking about some of the short stories. it was a beautiful collection
  definitely some misses!
• 
  Yvette Collins

  3.5 stars
  I enjoyed many of the stories, but this was a mixed bag collection.
• 
  Jessica Harper

  Some good some not good
• 
  jess

  ‘I wondered whether in the final moments of a dying person said, “so this is death,” or did they say, “so that was life”?’
  
  It’s such a mixed bag here! I was definitely exposed to a lot of different writers and ways of storytelling in this collection, which was enough to make it a worthwhile read. My favourite works were most often the works in translation, i loved that Luiselli focused on works in translation and diversity of perspectives and literary traditions when editing.
  
  It was nice to dip my toes into authors I wouldn’t normally read and I loved the diversity of countries and writing styles as I thought it added to this sense of exploring and expanding horizons.
  
  Many of these stories were good but forgettable which is why I think this is a 3 star and not a 4; however, my favourites were:
  ~ Breastmilk
  ~ Zikora
  ~ FaceTime
  
  Follow my bookstagram @booksntits :)
• 
  Andrew

  A litany of well written misery from all over the world. I wish they all ended like Dengue Boy.
  
  RIYL: sadness porn, dying family, covid anxiety, poverty kids, class warfare, statutory rape, sick kids, post-partum depression, taking advantage of others, et al.
• 
  Diana

  average rating for all stories is 4.075, so truly very good.
  
  there really were more 5 stars than anything else. i'll list them here as starred recommendations.
  
  - screen time
  - the wolves of circassia
  - mercedes's special talent
  - a way with bea
  - seams
  - the little widow from the capital
  - lemonade
  - breastmilk
  - fish stories
  - zikora
  - an unlucky man
• 
  Julia Townsend

  I was delighted by this anthology. However, I was underwhelmed by the "COVID" themes. I thought it was repetitive. I love that half of the featured stories are translated to English, though. I really loved Dengue Boy, The Little Widow from the Capital, Breastmilk, and Horse Soup. After reading, I feel inspired to write a short story myself!
• 
  Caroline Hegg

  I usually read the Best American short stories and I was curious as to how I would enjoy a compilation with so many works in translation. I was really impressed and enjoyed nearly every story in this collection. Favorites were Rainbows, Seams, The Little Widow from the Capital, Horse Soup, Clean Teen, Apples, and Warp and Weft.
• 
  Molly Howard

  You’re setting the bar very high with a title like The Best Short Stories of 2022. With every entry I read in this collection, I reflected on the promise of that title – the best short stories of 2022. Were they really the best? Obviously the editor thought so, and they were “best” enough to win the O. Henry prize, but I found myself wondering again and again. To be honest, I’m not sure I really liked any of the stories. Or if I did, it was in sort of a passing way, and now I have trouble recalling them specifically. I did like “Warp and Weft” and “Clean Teen.” I’d say those were my two favorites from the collection. The real nail in the coffin for me was the monstrosity of a short story titled “Horse Soup.” I finished reading that 54-page slog weeks ago now and I’m still mad about it. I also thought lots of other stories in the collection were maybe… saccharine? “A Way With Bea,” “Breastmilk,” and “Zikora” were all similar in vibe in that they felt very sentimental and new-motherhood focused. I was also very tired of the COVID stories. (If I literally cannot escape the hellmouth that is pandemic life, I don’t want an on-the-nose short fiction piece detailing the monotonous misery of pandemic life. At least make it interesting.) That’s not to say I thought they were bad stories or poorly written but more that they were just sort of dull, stylistically. I thought there were some stories in the collection that were doing a lot more with playing with voice and form (to varying degrees of success), but the collection ultimately felt too serious and deadpan to be much fun to read. It probably has to do with the O. Henry prize and whatever criteria the judges are using for that award, but I was a little disappointed with what’s considered the best new literature of the year.
• 
  Greg

  Well, no!
  
  There were very few of these stories that interested me, and I think one of the reasons is that so many of them were from other cultures about which I know relatively little and/or the stories themselves just didn't "have it."
  
  Be forewarned: a more accurate title for this collection would have been "Top Short Stories from around the World."
  
  Novels -- even novelettes -- are far more successful at picturing the intriguing depths of other cultures than are short stories.
  
  Although I am relatively wide-read and educated, I honestly felt like -- forgive me -- one of the "elite" were telling me (us) that THESE ARE THE STORIES WHICH YOU SHOULD LIKE.
  
  
• 
  Bethany Wright

  An enjoyable collection. ‘Horse Soup’ haunts me daily - it cannot be unread.
• 
  Matthew

  Stories worth reading:
  Horse Soup (Vladimir Sorokin)
  Zikora (Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie) *****