Toast of the town ... Deborah Levy's Black Vodka is on the shortlist for the BBC international short story award. Photograph: Dave M Benett/Getty Images
Still reeling from her shortlisting for the Man Booker prize, the novelist and playwright Deborah Levy has just made it on to the final lineup for the £15,000 BBC international short story award.
Levy, author of the Booker-shortlisted novel Swimming Home, is one of 10 writers shortlisted today for the BBC prize, one of the UK's most prestigious short story awards. Her story, Black Vodka, sees a hunchbacked man going on a date with his dream girl, and is up against entries from former winner Julian Gough, whose story The iHole tells of the latest must-have gadget, a portable black hole, and the award-winning writer MJ Hyland. Hyland's Even Pretty Eyes Commit Crimes is about a man who, on realising his wife is leaving him, is forced to reassess his relationship with his father.
For the first time since its launch in 2006, and for this year only, the BBC prize has opened itself up to entries from around the world in honour of the Olympics. Krys Lee, born in Seoul, is in the running for her story The Goose Father, in which a man stays in South Korea while his wife and children move to America for a better life, South African author Henrietta Rose-Innes – winner of the Caine prize – for Sanctuary, about a journey to a childhood haunt in the South African bush, and Bulgarian Miroslav Penkov for East of the West, set in Bulgaria during and after the cold war.
"We read 70-odd stories to come up with this shortlist," said chair of judges Clive Anderson. "I've judged a few book prizes before and I thought short stories would be easier – in the sense they are shorter, and that it would also be more obvious which were good and which were bad. But it didn't prove to be any easier at all, there was plenty of room for discussion. I found the short story form very pleasant, very engaging to read."
Anderson, joined on the judging panel by the novelists Anjali Joseph, Ross Raisin and Michèle Roberts, and BBC Radio's Di Speirs, said the stories chosen explored "universal themes". "You start with different settings – one of them [Gough's] imagines a portable black hole – but all of them when it comes down to it are probably about love and relationships, between men and women, between parents and children," he said. "Plus a goose, a dog and a must-have disposable electronic device. In short, some great stories."
The shortlist is completed with Lucy Caldwell's Escape Routes, set in Belfast in the 1990s, Adam Ross's In the Basement, in which two couples meet for dinner and end up discussing an old friend, Carrie Tiffany's Before He Left the Family, about the aftermath of a divorce, and Chris Womersley's A Lovely and Terrible Thing, which sees a man invited to a stranger's house when his car breaks down. Each of the 10 shortlisted stories will be broadcast on BBC Radio 4 over two weeks, at 3.30pm from Monday. The winner will be announced on 2 October on Front Row.
The iHole by Julian Gough
Even Pretty Eyes Commit Crimes by M J Hyland
The Goose Father by Krys Lee
Black Vodka by Deborah Levy
East of the West by Miroslav Penkov
Sanctuary by Henrietta Rose-Innes
In the Basement by Adam Ross
Before he Left the Family by Carrie Tiffany
A Lovely and Terrible Thing by Chris Womersley
Levy, author of the Booker-shortlisted novel Swimming Home, is one of 10 writers shortlisted today for the BBC prize, one of the UK's most prestigious short story awards. Her story, Black Vodka, sees a hunchbacked man going on a date with his dream girl, and is up against entries from former winner Julian Gough, whose story The iHole tells of the latest must-have gadget, a portable black hole, and the award-winning writer MJ Hyland. Hyland's Even Pretty Eyes Commit Crimes is about a man who, on realising his wife is leaving him, is forced to reassess his relationship with his father.
For the first time since its launch in 2006, and for this year only, the BBC prize has opened itself up to entries from around the world in honour of the Olympics. Krys Lee, born in Seoul, is in the running for her story The Goose Father, in which a man stays in South Korea while his wife and children move to America for a better life, South African author Henrietta Rose-Innes – winner of the Caine prize – for Sanctuary, about a journey to a childhood haunt in the South African bush, and Bulgarian Miroslav Penkov for East of the West, set in Bulgaria during and after the cold war.
"We read 70-odd stories to come up with this shortlist," said chair of judges Clive Anderson. "I've judged a few book prizes before and I thought short stories would be easier – in the sense they are shorter, and that it would also be more obvious which were good and which were bad. But it didn't prove to be any easier at all, there was plenty of room for discussion. I found the short story form very pleasant, very engaging to read."
Anderson, joined on the judging panel by the novelists Anjali Joseph, Ross Raisin and Michèle Roberts, and BBC Radio's Di Speirs, said the stories chosen explored "universal themes". "You start with different settings – one of them [Gough's] imagines a portable black hole – but all of them when it comes down to it are probably about love and relationships, between men and women, between parents and children," he said. "Plus a goose, a dog and a must-have disposable electronic device. In short, some great stories."
The shortlist is completed with Lucy Caldwell's Escape Routes, set in Belfast in the 1990s, Adam Ross's In the Basement, in which two couples meet for dinner and end up discussing an old friend, Carrie Tiffany's Before He Left the Family, about the aftermath of a divorce, and Chris Womersley's A Lovely and Terrible Thing, which sees a man invited to a stranger's house when his car breaks down. Each of the 10 shortlisted stories will be broadcast on BBC Radio 4 over two weeks, at 3.30pm from Monday. The winner will be announced on 2 October on Front Row.
The shortlist
Escape Routes by Lucy CaldwellThe iHole by Julian Gough
Even Pretty Eyes Commit Crimes by M J Hyland
The Goose Father by Krys Lee
Black Vodka by Deborah Levy
East of the West by Miroslav Penkov
Sanctuary by Henrietta Rose-Innes
In the Basement by Adam Ross
Before he Left the Family by Carrie Tiffany
A Lovely and Terrible Thing by Chris Womersley
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