| Fado & Other Stories
Winner of the 1997 Drue Heinz Literature Prize
"An intermittently explosive, persistent lyricism buoys up these stories of family, sex, flowers, money, history, loss, and identity that take place in the Portuguese communities of the mainland United States, Hawaii, the Azores, and Madeira," remarks screening judge April Bernard of this first collection of short fiction by Katherine Vaz. At times surreal, at times "magical," always image-intense and beautifully written, this collection by turns focuses on the details of its characters' lives, then pulls back to reveal the panorama of an entire culture. It is a culture of tropical plants and climates, filled with the allure—and sometimes destruction of—red tides, bull runs, sexual passion, spiritual and emotional discovery. This collection is also filled with narrative and character grounded in the meaning and value the earth gives to human existence.
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Praise for Fado & Other Stories:
"Winner of the 1997 Drue Heinz Literature Prize, this collection is filled with narrative and character grounded in the meaning and value the earth gives to human existence."—New York Review of Books
"Vaz succeeds in creating unusual protagonists: an ungainly healer whose hands grow larger and smaller as the plot demands; a young woman who rises into the air and whose much older lover waits for the rain 'until he could feel her pouring over him.'. . . a celebration of the drama of individual lives. With inventive lyricism, Fado & Other Stories explores the notion of a 'grand event allotted to each person—only one, with every other major event a consequence of that.'"—Janet Kaye, New York Times
"The lyric soulfulness of the Portuguese Fado, the colours and rhythms of the sea, the language of flowers, echoes of ritual and myth, weave through these stories . . . Her enviably poetic sensibility, already deservedly noticed in two novels, Saudade (1994) and Mariana (1997), sets her in the first rank of contemporary authors for whom the American dream of expatriate parents has become an all too ambiguous reality."—Times Literary Supplement
Visit my additional praise page for more reviews.
Also of interest by Katherine Vaz:
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