A very happy paperback publication day to our 2017 winner, Dima Alzayat, and her short story collection, Alligator and Other Stories.
Since it was published in hardback last year, Dima’s collection has been shortlisted for the 2021 Dylan Thomas Prize and was a finalist for the prestigious PEN/Robert W Bingham Prize for Debut Short Story Collections in the US earlier this year.
Alligator… has also received numerous rave reviews. “How does it feel to be an alien at home? . . . Sardonic, monstrous, tender, these well-crafted tales show us circumstances that might be our own, and let us see them through the eyes of others”, said The Sunday Times, while LitHub asserted: “Alligator contains several stories of breathtaking power . . . Start reading now and you can say you were an early fan, because Dima Alzayat combines superb writing with razor-sharp imagination and focuses on social injustice, racial violence, and global immigration.”
Dima is represented by literary agent, Juliet Pickering at the Blake Friedmann agency. Juliet signed Dima after judging our 2017 competition and said shortly after signing her: “Dima is so skilled at balancing the subtle pathos of everyday events with something that runs much deeper. The voices of her characters are recognisable, but yet come from a place we have yet to really uncover and explore in fiction – a reflection on Dima’s own Syrian-American background, which offers a perspective that was new to me. I’m always keen to find fresh, talented and largely-unheard voices, and Dima’s is definitely one of those.”
Congratulations to Dima and we wish her huge luck in the forthcoming Dylan Thomas Prize winner announcement.
Dima Alzayat won the 2017 Bristol Short Story Prize with her story, Ghusl, which can be found in our Volume 10 anthology, published by Tangent Books, as well as in Alligator and Other Stories. https://www.tangentbooks.co.uk/shop/bristol-short-story-prize-volume-10
photo credit: www.blakefriedmann.com