The Journey Prize Stories 21

“The collection consistently does what the oeuvre does best: communicate intense emotion with force, give life to characters that struggle with their circumstances, illuminate the universal through the specific and the particular, and turn the commonplace into art.” *Globe and Mail*  

“[The anthology] amuses, astonishes, and enlightens; it is a delicious cacophony of voices and engaging stories . . .”*Books in Canada *

**The Journey Prize Stories** is Canada’s most celebrated annual fiction anthology, presenting the best stories published each year by some of our most exciting up-and-coming writers.

Among the stories this year: Desperate to reinvent himself, a disgraced diplomat on what will be the last assignment of his career goes in search of a woman from his past in Eastern Croatia. As a teacher begins to unravel in the aftermath of a school shooting, a series of surprising encounters with her former students reveals their differing degrees of resiliency. Bench presses and Wonder Woman comics create an unexpected intimacy between a teenager and her Ukrainian-language tutor, a former female champion weightlifter. After his junkie uncle moves into the basement to hide out from his dealer and get clean, a lonely boy’s longing for a male role model threatens to lead him astray. When a famous author finds himself embroiled in a sex scandal while on his book tour, he discovers the only person he has left to turn to is his handler, a woman with secrets of her own.  Cultural tradition gives way to modern-day Japanese efficiency when a long-married couple attend a meeting of Concerned Parents of Unmarried Offspring, a speed dating event for parents in search of spouses for their adult children. 

The stories included in the anthology are contenders for the $10,000 Writers’ Trust of Canada/McClelland & Stewart Journey Prize. The winner will be announced in fall 2010.

*From the Trade Paperback edition.*