Tenderness: Short Stories

Description

A superb collection of stories from a prize-winning writer - some short, some long, set in locations that span the globe, all exploring the theme encapsulated by the title: tenderness. Meet Sadie, the high-flying divorce lawyer who ends up putting marriages back together; the Ice Cream Girl, discovered in a superette and transplanted to Hollywood; the seven-year-old Prometheus, who faces death on a daily basis. With a mix of humour and compassion, each story carries the punch of a compacted novel, highlighting those illuminating moments of human connection. Sarah Quigley has an impressive track-record as a fiction writer, and these stories will not disappoint. Stylistically assured, emotionally resonant, they are guaranteed to capture minds and hearts. Quigley has won numerous awards for her short fiction, including the Sunday Star-Times Short Story Award and the Commonwealth Pacific Rim Short Story Award. Her best-selling novel, The Conductor, has sold throughout the world. It was long-listed for the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award, and shortlisted for the prestigious Prix Femina.

Sarah Quigley was born in Christchurch, New Zealand. She is a novelist, critic, non-fiction writer, poet, and columnist. She has a DPhil in Literature from the University of Oxford and is a graduate of Bill Manhire's creative writing course. In 1998, she won the Buddle Findlay Sargeson Fellowship. Her short stories and poetry have been widely broadcast and published, and she has won many prizes, including the Sunday Star-Times Short Story Award and the Commonwealth Pacific Rim Short Story Award. Her publications include novels, short fiction, a creative writing manual and poetry collections, many of which have sold internationally. Reviewing her novel Fifty Days, The Observer wrote, 'Sensual, monstrous and bewitching ... Quigley's prose imparts constant shocks of lyricism, intensity and acuity.' Her second novel, Shot, was long-listed for the 2005 International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award, and her third novel, Fifty Days, saw her featured in Waterstones UK 20 Faces of the Future. In 2000 she won the inaugural Creative New Zealand Berlin Residency. Since then she has divided her time between New Zealand and Berlin. Her novel The Conductor, which is set during the siege of Leningrad, was the highest selling adult fiction title in New Zealand in 2011, remaining at number one for 20 weeks. Subsequently it won the Booksellers Choice Award and was long-listed for the 2012 International IMPAC Award. More about Quigley's work can be found on her website: www.sarahvquigley.com. The New Zealand Herald wrote of The Conductor: 'This extraordinary novel is a symphony on the power of love - the love of music, home, family, city, and Quigley's love of writing. Each sentence carries the weight of these loves, but each sentence is characterised by an unexpected moving lightness of being. A triumph on every level a' A review in The Observer read: 'The Conductor reads like a proper up-all-night page-turner, but it also conveys the extraordinary life-saving properties of music, and hope.' The novel was chosen by The Observer as one of its top picks for 2012, and has been sold into 10 different countries.