Rough Translations
Stories
Title Details
Pages: 144
Trim size: 5.500in x 8.500in
Formats
Paperback
Pub Date: 11/10/2004
ISBN: 9-780-8203-2370-1
List Price: $22.95
Related Subjects
Rough Translations
Stories
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- Description
- Reviews
- Awards
Molly Giles's engaging collection of stories was the winner not only of the Flannery O'Connor Award for Short Fiction but also of the 1985 San Francisco Bay Area Book Reviewers Association (BABRA) Award for Fiction and the 1986 Boston Globe Fiction Award. Many of the stories in Rough Translations have been anthologized and adapted for radio performance.
A master of the complexities of language, Molly Giles writes of the missed connections in life and of the rough translations that we employ when we try to convey, through words and gestures, what we are thinking and what we want from our loved ones.
The title of Molly Giles's first collection of short fiction reflects her attempt to capture in layered phrases and fresh, sharp dialogue the timely theme of human connections gone bad, broken, or missed altogether.
—New York Times Book Review
Her impeccable timing and energetic prose sacrifice grandstanding in favor of exploration and direct statement, often tempered with a great, hushed humor.
—San Francisco Chronicle
Giles's stories are tiny gems, carved from real American life, precise and identifiable.
—Houston Post
A current as irresistible as the tide flows through and unifies these stories. . . . [They] carry you with wit and compassion into corners of the mind and heart that most writers neglect to enter.
—Publishers Weekly
Were it to stand by itself without a prize to commend it, this volume of short stories would demand attention. The twelve stories, while differing widely in style and tone, all attempt to illuminate the intimate aspects of our lives . . . Rough Translations joins the ranks of excellent short story collections that have appeared so far this year, such as Amy Hempel's Reasons to Live
—Choice
Winner
Bay Area Book Reviewers Award, Bay Area Book Reviewers Association
Winner
Boston Globe Literary Press Award, Boston Globe