The O. Henry Prize Winners
September 19, 2022
This impressive anthology, the first in the series to include work in translation, is a showcase for Luiselli’s keen eye for literary quality. Many speak to the pandemic’s new normal. In the opener, “Screen Time” by Alejandro Zambra, translated from the Spanish by Megan McDowell, the parents of a two-year-old boy resolve to keep his early childhood free of screens. Later, when the family’s in lockdown, the couple reconsiders and discusses sharing their world of television and movies with their son. Daniel Mason’s “The Wolves of Circassia” follows an older couple and their care worker, Seini, who moves in with them during the lockdown, along with the couple’s son and grandson. As Seini grows isolated from her own family and fatigued from her increased responsibilities, the household’s uneasy balance is threatened. Politics feature in the uncanny “Where They Always Meet” by Christos Ikonomou, translated from the Greek by Karen Emmerich, in which a journalist meets a woman who claims to be the granddaughter of Stalin, her existence covered up by the state; and in the wildly inventive and fantastical “Dengue Boy” by Michel Nieva, translated from the Spanish by Natasha Wimmer, featuring a class-conscious pubescent boy who’s bullied for being half mosquito. These stories surprise and illuminate.