 First edition | |
| Author | Edward P. Jones |
|---|---|
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Genre | Short stories |
| Publisher | William Morrow and Company |
Publication date | June 16, 1992 |
| Media type | |
Lost in the City is a 1992 collection of short stories about African-American life in Washington, D.C., by Pulitzer Prize-winning author Edward P. Jones.
Lost in the City is a collection of 14 stories. The author, a native of Washington, [1] writes about the ordinary residents of the city: "I had read James Joyce's Dubliners, and I was quite taken with what he had done and I set out to give a better picture of what the city is like—the other city." [2]
The book starts with the youngest character and ends with the oldest character. [3]
The structure of Lost in the City mirrors that of All Aunt Hagar's Children , another collection of short stories written by Jones:
The first story in Lost in the City has to do with Betsy Ann and the pigeons, and the first story in All Aunt Hagar's Children is about the infancy of the man who ultimately gives her the pigeons. The second story of each collection is about the schooling of some type and is told in the first person. Penny, the grocer, is introduced in "The Store," in Lost in the City, and she shows up in the title story of All Aunt Hagar's Children. In both of those stories, the narrator is a first-person man, but he has no name, and so on. If I ever do a third collection, it will be like that, too. [3]
In Lost in the City, the story of “The First Day” chronicles a young girl's first day of school. The story is told from the young girl's point of view. The story opens with her describing how she gets ready by drawing a picture of the style of her hair and the outfit she wears including her new shoes that she loves. As the story progresses we learn that the narrator and her mom went to the wrong school and now have to travel and register for the new school in town. Unlike the old school, which was a familiar structure of their community but run-down, the new school was shiny and new and represents the unknown. The young girl's mom doesn't know how to read so she pays someone to help fill the paperwork out and the mom gives the helper 50 cents for her help. The story ends with the five-year-old girl listening to her mother's footsteps as she walks away. When reading the story, the author stresses the value of education through the amount of effort the family and the community put into the first day of school. It also provides commentary on how the community uses school to judge families. Before the mom and the girl left, they made sure the young girl was fed and well dressed.[5]
Lost in the City won the Hemingway Foundation/PEN Award in 1993 and was a finalist for the National Book Award for Fiction. [4]
Joanna Russ was an American writer, academic and feminist. She is the author of a number of works of science fiction, fantasy and feminist literary criticism such as How to Suppress Women's Writing, as well as a contemporary novel, On Strike Against God, and one children's book, Kittatinny. She is best known for The Female Man, a novel combining utopian fiction and satire, and the story "When It Changed".
Little Women is a coming-of-age novel written by American novelist Louisa May Alcott, originally published in two volumes in 1868 and 1869 at the request of her publisher. The story follows the lives of the four March sisters—Meg, Jo, Beth, and Amy—and details their passage from childhood to womanhood. Loosely based on the lives of the author and her three sisters, it is classified as an autobiographical or semi-autobiographical novel.
In Search of Lost Time, first translated into English as Remembrance of Things Past, and sometimes referred to in French as La Recherche, is a novel in seven volumes by French author Marcel Proust. This early 20th-century work is his most prominent, known both for its length and its theme of involuntary memory. The most famous example of this is the "episode of the madeleine", which occurs early in the first volume.
Edith Wharton was an American writer and designer. Wharton drew upon her insider's knowledge of the upper-class New York "aristocracy" to portray realistically the lives and morals of the Gilded Age. In 1921, she became the first woman to win the Pulitzer Prize in Fiction, for her novel The Age of Innocence. She was inducted into the National Women's Hall of Fame in 1996. Among her other well known works are The House of Mirth, the novella Ethan Frome, and several notable ghost stories.
Zenna Chlarson Henderson was an American elementary school teacher and science fiction and fantasy author. Her first story was published in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction in 1951. Her work is cited as pre-feminist, often featuring middle-aged women, children, and their relationships, but with stereotyped gender roles. Many of her stories center around humanoid aliens called "The People", who have special powers. Henderson was nominated for a Hugo Award in 1959 for her novelette Captivity. Science fiction authors Lois McMaster Bujold, Orson Scott Card, Connie Willis, Dale Bailey, and Kathy Tyers have cited her as an influence on their work.
Edward Paul Jones is an American novelist and short story writer. He received the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and the International Dublin Literary Award for his 2003 novel The Known World.
Lydia Millet is an American novelist. Her 2020 novel A Children's Bible, was a finalist for the National Book Award for Fiction and named one of the ten best books of the year by the New York Times Book Review. She has been a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and the Los Angeles Times Book Prize. Salon wrote of Millet's work, "The writing is always flawlessly beautiful, reaching for an experience that precedes language itself."
Mary Louisa Molesworth, néeStewart was an English writer of children's stories who wrote for children under the name of Mrs Molesworth. Her first novels, for adult readers, Lover and Husband (1869) to Cicely (1874), appeared under the pseudonym of Ennis Graham. Her name occasionally appears in print as M. L. S. Molesworth.
The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle is a historical novel by the American author Avi published in 1990. The book is marketed towards children at a reading level of grades 5–8. The book chronicles the evolution of the title character as she is pushed outside her naive existence and learns about life aboard a ship crossing from England to America in 1832. The novel was well received and won several awards, including being named as a Newbery Honor book in 1991.
Deb Caletti is an American writer of young adult and adult fiction. Caletti is a National Book Award finalist, and a Michael L. Printz Honor Book medalist, as well as the recipient of other numerous awards including the PEN USA finalist award, the Josette Frank Award for Fiction, the Washington State Book Award, and SLJ Best Book award. Caletti's books feature the Pacific Northwest, and her young adult work is popular for tackling difficult issues typically reserved for adult fiction. Her first adult fiction novel, He's Gone, was published by Random House in 2013, and was followed by several other books for adults, in addition to her many books for teens.
Laila Lalami is a Moroccan-American novelist, essayist, and professor. After earning her Licence de lettres degree in Morocco, she received a fellowship to study in the United Kingdom (UK), where she earned an MA in linguistics.
Gordon Frederick Browne was an English artist and a prolific illustrator of children's books in the late 19th century and early 20th century. He was a meticulous craftsman and went to a great deal of effort to ensure that his illustrations were accurate. He illustrated six or seven books a year in addition to a huge volume of magazine illustration.
Karen Russell is an American novelist and short story writer. Her debut novel, Swamplandia!, was a finalist for the 2012 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. In 2009 the National Book Foundation named Russell a 5 under 35 honoree. She was also the recipient of a MacArthur Foundation "Genius Grant" in 2013.
Katherine Sherar Pannill Center is an American author of contemporary fiction.
All Aunt Hagar's Children (2006) is a collection of short stories by African-American author Edward P. Jones; it was his first book after winning the 2004 Pulitzer Prize for The Known World. The collection of 14 stories centers on African Americans in Washington D.C. during the 20th century. The stories can be broken down by how the characters suffer burdens from families, society, and themselves. "Each story traces a journey--planned or unplanned, taken or failed--and an obvious root/route symbolism runs throughout the collection." Jones is noted for writing long short stories and these are no exception, they are sometimes called "novelistic", characters are fully fleshed out.
Lucy Jane Bledsoe is a novelist who has received many awards for her fiction, including two National Science Foundation Artists & Writers Fellowships, a California Arts Council Fellowship, a Yaddo Fellowship, the American Library Association Stonewall Award, the Arts & Letters Fiction Prize, the Saturday Evening Post Fiction Award, the Sherwood Anderson Prize for Fiction, two Pushcart nominations, and the Devil's Kitchen Fiction Award. She is a six-time finalist for the Lambda Literary Award and a three-time finalist for the Ferro-Grumley Award.
Only the Good Spy Young is a 2010 young adult fiction novel by Ally Carter, and the sequel to Don't Judge a Girl by Her Cover. It is the fourth book in the Gallagher Girls series. The book was released on July 29, 2010, but the title had been announced and the cover released on December 25, 2009. Ally Carter posted "mini excerpts" of the book on her website in the lead-up to the release.
Allyson Braithwaite Condie is an author of young adult and middle grade fiction. Her novel Matched was a #1 New York Times and international bestseller, and spent over a year on the New York Times Bestseller List. The sequels are also New York Times bestsellers. Matched was chosen as one of YALSA's 2011 Teens' Top Ten and named as one of Publishers Weekly's Best Children's Books of 2010. All three books are available in 30+ languages.
Valeria Luiselli is a Mexican author living in the United States. She is the author of the book of essays Sidewalks and the novel Faces in the Crowd, which won the Los Angeles Times Art Seidenbaum Award for First Fiction. Luiselli's 2015 novel The Story of My Teeth was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award and the Best Translated Book Award, and won the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Best Fiction, and she was awarded the Premio Metropolis Azul in Montreal, Quebec. Luiselli's books have been translated into more than 20 languages, with her work appearing in publications including, The New York Times, Granta, McSweeney's, and The New Yorker. Her book, Tell Me How It Ends: An Essay in 40 Questions, was a finalist for the Kirkus Prize in Nonfiction and the National Book Critics Circle Award in Criticism. Luiselli's 2019 novel, Lost Children Archive won the Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction.
Molly Antopol is an American fiction and nonfiction writer. As of 2016, she is the Jones Lecturer at Stanford University. Her primary research interests include the Cold War and the Middle East.
5. Jones, E. P. (1993). The First Day. In Lost in the city: Stories. New York, NY: HarperPerennial.