Winner of the PEN/Hemingway Award * A National Bestseller
“An exceptional story collection.” —New York Times Book Review
The well-intentioned protagonists of Brief Encounters with Che Guevera—including a disillusioned NGO worker, the wife of a special operations officer, and an obssessed ornithologist—are caught, to both disastrous and hilarious effect, in the maelstrom of political and social upheaval surrounding them.
With masterful pacing and a robust sense of the absurd, each story is a self-contained adventure, steeped in the heady mix of tragedy and danger, excitement and hope, that characterizes countries in transition. An intelligent and keenly observed collection, Brief Encounters with Che Guevera marks the arrival of a striking and resonant new voice that speaks adeptly to the intimate connection between the foreign, the familiar, and the inescapably human.
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Brief Encounters with Che Guevara: Stories
Winner of the PEN/Hemingway Award * A National Bestseller
“An exceptional story collection.” —New York Times Book Review
The well-intentioned protagonists of Brief Encounters with Che Guevera—including a disillusioned NGO worker, the wife of a special operations officer, and an obssessed ornithologist—are caught, to both disastrous and hilarious effect, in the maelstrom of political and social upheaval surrounding them.
With masterful pacing and a robust sense of the absurd, each story is a self-contained adventure, steeped in the heady mix of tragedy and danger, excitement and hope, that characterizes countries in transition. An intelligent and keenly observed collection, Brief Encounters with Che Guevera marks the arrival of a striking and resonant new voice that speaks adeptly to the intimate connection between the foreign, the familiar, and the inescapably human.
Winner of the PEN/Hemingway Award * A National Bestseller
“An exceptional story collection.” —New York Times Book Review
The well-intentioned protagonists of Brief Encounters with Che Guevera—including a disillusioned NGO worker, the wife of a special operations officer, and an obssessed ornithologist—are caught, to both disastrous and hilarious effect, in the maelstrom of political and social upheaval surrounding them.
With masterful pacing and a robust sense of the absurd, each story is a self-contained adventure, steeped in the heady mix of tragedy and danger, excitement and hope, that characterizes countries in transition. An intelligent and keenly observed collection, Brief Encounters with Che Guevera marks the arrival of a striking and resonant new voice that speaks adeptly to the intimate connection between the foreign, the familiar, and the inescapably human.
Ben Fountain was born in Chapel Hill and grew up in the tobacco country of eastern North Carolina. A former practicing attorney, he is the author of Brief Encounters with Che Guevara, which won the PEN/Hemingway Award and the Barnes & Noble Discover Award for Fiction, and the novel Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk, winner of the National Book Critics' Circle Award and a finalist for the National Book Award. Billy Lynn was adapted into a feature film directed by three-time Oscar winner Ang Lee, and his work has been translated into over twenty languages. His series of essays published in The Guardian on the 2016 U.S. presidential election was subsequently nominated by the editors of The Guardian for the Pulitzer Prize in Commentary. He lives in Dallas, Texas with his wife of 32 years, Sharon Fountain.
Hometown:
Dallas, Texas
Place of Birth:
Chapel Hill, North Carolina
Education:
B.A. in English, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 1980; J.D., Duke University School of Law, 1983
What People are Saying About This
Daivd Means
“Wildly plotted, astutely observed, and beautifully rendered.”
Jim Crace
“It is such an unexpected joy, in this age of introspection, to discover an American writer with a global outlook.”
Audrey Bullar
“Ben Fountain...blew me out of the water. These stories are absolutely jaw-dropping.”
Tom Bissell
“[A] brilliant...exhilarating book, filled with heavenly language and insight.”
Will Blythe
“[Fountain’s] really a bright light on character in extreme conditions.”
Gary Shteyngart
“Fountain has the storytelling gifts to bring the world home to us and a moral compass set to true north.”
Nell Freudenberger
“Fountain’s confidence in taking on real world problems is matched by his reluctance to pontificate or judge.”
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Ben Fountain, author of Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk, and Alan Heathcock, author of Volt, discuss provocative and “political” writing, the desire for accuracy, and the compulsion to tell stories in an exclusive conversation.
This thrilling story of religious frenzy and its consequences in a small town is a remarkably assured work whose brilliantly voiced characters make it hard to believe this is author Wiley Cash’s debut novel. Cash shares his thoughts on Southern literature and adolescent poetry, among other things, here.
