Liberation Day: Stories

"George Saunders is a modern master of the short story. You might be familiar with Booker Prize-winning novel Lincoln in the Bardo , or even his dissection of the Russian short story, A Swim in a Pond in the Rain , but for a very long time he was best known for his bizarre, tragicomic short stories that are very funny, as well as weird and often violent. I’ve listened to nearly all of them now, and ‘Ghoul’ is one of my favourites; it’s also a great introduction to Saunders as it features many of his trademark motifs and preoccupations. ‘Ghoul’ is set in a dystopian theme park, based underground and styled to represent a kind of earthly Hell, and is told through the eyes of an actor playing a ‘Squatting Ghoul.’ (Read, perfectly, by Jack McBrayer in the audiobook.) The inhabitants of this subterranean hellscape are plagued with power cuts and floods, and visitors never seem to arrive. What does it mean? Is it an atheist parable? Even the author isn’t sure . What I can tell you is that Saunders’ stories make me laugh, they make me think, and occasionally they make me gasp out loud in horror. He is one of America’s greatest living writers. Also recommended: The Tenth of December by George Saunders"

"And—okay, fine, technically not a novel, but—I should also note that George Saunders (who won the Booker Prize in 2017 for his brilliantly funny and surreal first novel Lincoln in the Bardo ) has a new book out in mid-October. In Liberation Day, Saunders returns to his first love—the short story—and transports us into a hell-themed amusement park and a near-future police state. (If you can’t wait, make sure you’ve read his storytelling masterclass A Swim in a Pond in the Rain , adapted from a course on Russian short stories that he has taught at Syracuse University for twenty years.) Personally, I’m particularly excited about Our Share of Night by the Argentinian author Mariana Enriquez, who was shortlisted for the International Booker Prize in 2021 for her utterly unsettling collection of literary ghost stories The Dangers of Smoking in Bed . This new novel, also translated into English by Megan McDowell, is a gothic horror set partly during Argentina’s brutal military dictatorship, but which also embraces elements of occultism and the supernatural. Clocking in at more than 700 pages, this is an intimidating tome that simply pulsates with negative energy. That’s a recommendation, in case I’m not being clear."