DESCRIPTION:
Howell’s much-celebrated stories interweave elements of the commonplace with darkness, subterfuge and sheer weirdness, all realised with natural narrative flair. In this striking new collection, we see Howell explore a wide range of cultures, including Hawaii, Portugal and Japan, alongside these are period tales, and sinister and sexual encounters, all related with a cool eye for our desires and obsessions.
Brian Howell is an author and teacher living and working near Tokyo, Japan. He has published three novels and one short story collection (The Sound of White Ants) since 1990. He has also published over thirty short stories since 1990, in publications which include Critical Quarterly, Stand, and Best British Short Stories 2018 (edited by Nicholas Royle). His novels focus on Dutch seventeenth-century painters and optical devices, the counter-historical, and fantasy, and they form a loose trilogy. His stories have elements of the weird, fantasy, and magical realism, but can also be realism-based. His most recent novel, Sight Unseen, was published by Zagava, Germany in 2019; Zagava also reprinted his earlier The Curious Case of Jan Torrentius in paperback in 2021. His novel about the painter Vermeer – The Dance of Geometry – will also be republished by Zagava in paperback.
Further reading
Read: Half a Life, Richmond Review
Review: forthcoming
Prompt: Write about the end of summer. Aim for 3 pages.