Well, how about that? Just last week I bemoaned the lack of a decent UK short story award, and behold: days later, the Guardian first book award has gone to Yiyun Li for her exquisite short story collection, A Thousand Years of Good Prayers. I feel vindicated (and tempted to test whether the blog gods can indeed grant requests: if anyone's listening, I'd like to get home and find I've done my Christmas shopping already.)
For most of the second half of the 20th-century, short stories languished in literary no man's land - not long enough to qualify as "proper" novels, too long to pack poetry's punch. In recent years, however, they have enjoyed a much documented renaissance. It seems to me, when I look back over books that have come out over the last couple of years, that those which linger in my mind and that I've recommended again and again to friends have almost all been short story collections. Still not convinced? Try comparing the following lists:
Runaway by Alice Munro Matters of Life and Death by Bernard MacLaverty Night Geometry and the Garscadden Trains by AL Kennedy Last Night by James Salter
and
The Inheritance of Loss by Kiran Desai On Beauty by Zadie Smith The Accidental by Ali Smith The Sea by John Banville
All the novels in the second list have won prizes and praise, and deservedly so. But in terms of quality and clarity of writing, of significance and probably of durability, I'd pick the collections on the first list every time. And if you've yet to read them, treat yourself - you'll thank me, I promise.
I'm delighted that Yiyun has taken home this year's award - not only because I think she deserved to win, but because her winning draws attention to a form that is flourishing in the way that children's literature did in the late 90s. Hers is the first collection to win the Guardian first book award since its inception in 1999, but I bet it won't be the last. And if the blog gods are still listening, I'd like to rephrase that last sentence in the form of a wish.
