Once Upon a Time: Reading 'Long Distance' by Ayşegül Savaş
Details
The story of the month: 'Long Distance' by Ayşegül Savaş
Link to the story:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/15T5abQAOYIQ9QO9vdLRVLHnzb2fImhRW/view?usp=sharing
Link to the Google Meet: https://meet.google.com/tnt-fnkp-uhp
The meeting room will open 5 minutes before the session.
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"A short story must have a single mood and every sentence must build towards it."
~ Edgar Allan Poe
Despite unwarranted reports of its demise at various times, the short story has been robust and thriving. The form itself has constantly changed, always reflecting the times it came out of, unlike the novel.
From the great short story writers – Guy de Maupassant, Anton Chekhov, Henry James, O’Henry, and Saki – we moved to the more modern writers who brought a change in the middle of the twentieth century – Flannery O’Connor and Raymond Carver were at the forefront of this.
Once Upon a Time is a session in which we try to familiarise ourselves with the world's best short stories. Shankar will read the story aloud in the session. After the reading, we will analyse it together to learn from it.
But if you can, please read the story beforehand.
THE STORY: 'Long Distance' by Ayşegül Savaş
Long Distance is the title story from her short-story collection of the same name. The story, along with most of Savaş’ other work touches upon the relationship between familiarity and obligation: closeness of any kind–linguistic, nationalistic, familial, proximity–requires something more human.
Link to the story:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/15T5abQAOYIQ9QO9vdLRVLHnzb2fImhRW/view?usp=sharing
THE AUTHOR:
Ayşegül Savaş is a Turkish writer who writes in English. She is the author of multiple novels with her third novel The Anthropologists receiving widespread acclaim.
THE HOST:
Shankar is living in Pune and has been a lifelong reader and was bitten by the writing bug after reading stories by Tobias Wolff, Anton Chekhov and William Trevor. While he loves novels, especially by the Russians, he always has a particular fondness for short stories.