TEHRAN – “The O. Henry Prize Stories 2018” compiled by Laura Furman has recently been published in Persian by Neyestan Publications in Tehran.

The book has been translated into Persian by Ali Famian under the title of one of the stories, “Lucky Dragon”.

“The O. Henry Prize Stories 2018” contains twenty prize-winning stories chosen from thousands published in literary magazines over the previous year.

The winning stories come from a mix of established writers and emerging voices, and are uniformly breathtaking. 

They are accompanied by essays from the eminent jurors on their favorites, observations from the winning writers on what inspired their stories, and an extensive resource list of magazines that publish short fiction.

“The Tomb of Wrestling” by Jo Ann Beard, “Counterblast” by Marjorie Celona, “Nayla” by Youmna Chlala, “Lucky Dragon” by Viet Dinh, “Stop ’n’ Go” by Michael Parker, “Past Perfect Continuous” by Dounia Choukri, “Inversion of Marcia” by Thomas Bolt and “Nights in Logar” by Jamil Jan Kochai are some of the books.

Also included are “How We Eat” by Mark Jude Poirier, “Deaf and Blind” by Lara Vapnyar, “Why Were They Throwing Bricks?,” by Jenny Zhang, “An Amount of Discretion” by Lauren Alwan and “Queen Elizabeth” by Brad Felver.

Furman is the winner of fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts for her fiction. 

As the author of several books, including the story collection “The Mother Who Stayed”, she taught writing for many years at the University of Texas at Austin. She lives in Central Texas.

Photo: Front cover of the Persian version of Laura Furman’s collection “The O. Henry Prize Stories 2018”. 

RM/MMS/YAW