Zadie Smith Introduces The Burned Children of America

Showcasing the work of an outstanding literary generation, this collection of short stories (almost all previously unpublished outside America) is the perfect introduction to nineteen of the best young writers in the United States today. We see here new, distinctive voices emerging - offering their readers an America quite different in spirit from that explored by the writers who preceded them. In Zadie Smith’s words; ‘Set apart from the exuberant possibilities of Bellow’s America, the masculine raging of Roth’s, the lyricism of Morrison’s, the America of these stories is more muted, the characters less hysterical in their trajectory, at odds with themselves, uncertain. Why are these writers so sad, so burned - what is the originating trauma? Read The Burned Children of America and make up your own mind.