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American author Susan Choi won the 2021 Sunday opening hours Audible Short Story Award with its “light” story “Flashlight”.
Choi is the fourth woman in four years to win the award, following in the footsteps of Niamh Campbell, Danielle McLaughlin and Courtney Zoffness. “Flashlight” follows a 10-year-old girl who sees a psychologist following her father’s drowning, amid concerns about his behavior and refusal to face his grief.
The author said she was “really amazed” to have won. “News is my first love and my first heartbreak. I started writing novels because I could never quite understand a short story,” she said. “So to have these judges that I admire so much suggests that I got this one right, and to be in the company of these 14 amazing authors on the long list, and to be a part of the history of this remarkable award, is a honor I could never have had I did not disrespect the integrity of Andrew Holgate, but when he told me I had won I thought he was playing a prank on me Thank you to him, to his fellow judges, to my fellow authors of the long list and to all the others involved in STASSA. “
Judge David Mitchell said: “This story describes the moves, feints and thrusts in a double duel between young protagonist Louisa and her child psychologist; and between Louisa who wants to live and thrive, and Louisa who believes she is ‘She doesn’t want to deserve. The dialogue is deep, unexpected and always plausible. “Flashlight” portrays the guilt, self-blame and overwhelming crisis of childhood, without ever falling into syrup. The end is the more subtle in the beginning; and, by virtue of that subtlety, it is luminous. “
Judge Andrew Holgate added: “What you want from a great short story is depth and intensity, and Susan Choi’s ‘Flashlight’ delivers them in spades. Apart from all of its other virtues, what is particularly impressive is the clarity of his understanding of a 10-year-old mind locked in trauma that he cannot quite comprehend. Absolutely superb. “
Choi’s first novel, The foreign student (HarperCollins), won the Asian-American Literary Award for Fiction. His second novel, American woman (HarperCollins), was a 2004 Pulitzer Prize finalist. She teaches fiction writing at Yale and lives in Brooklyn.
The jury included 2015 novelist, short story writer and winner Yiyun Li, award-winning author David Mitchell, best-selling novelist and short story writer Curtis Sittenfeld, acclaimed short story writer and shortlisted novelist Romesh Gunesekera, and Andrew Holgate, literary editor of the Sunday opening hours. This year, 903 eligible applications from more than 50 countries were registered.
Audible is sponsoring the award for the third year in a row and will produce an audio anthology of all shortlisted entries, which will be available to listen to from July 8.
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