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by Sohrab Homi Fracis (Author)
Sohrab Homi Fracis's innovative new collection tells a spectrum of stories under a paradoxical new umbrella category: True Fiction. Monotony is banished from this book. At a Florida coffee shop, an immigrant's voice opens up even as a hipster musician's shuts down. An underpaid bank teller in the age of ATMs is fired and goes postal. In the title story, on whose premise the book pivots away from realism, a professor recalls his favorite communication ever--and it's utterly silent. A loving husband and father finds himself inexplicably transformed into a woman. In another world, the protagonist simultaneously faces his end and a new beginning. A budding female messiah confronts a non-gendered godhead. And a bastard prince of ancient Turkey (whose legendary Persian name lives on in the author's) invades Persia to seek his father. Yet we can see ourselves in them all. Even as the resident magician in Five Points Coffee & Spice regales his fellow customers, Fracis's literary dexterity takes us on a darkly beguiling magic-carpet ride.
"Sohrab Homi Fracis's new collection, True Fiction, is a tour de force. Showcasing his great gifts as a stylist and his deliciously unfettered imagination, the collection ranges across genres, transgresses expectation, creates with beauty, grace, humor, and insight a compassionate portrait of our essential humanness in these eight eclectic stories that surprise and delight."--Rilla Askew, author of Fire in Beulah (American Book Award) and Kind of Kin "Fracis is the keen voice of the outsider looking in, telling stories that we all need to hear."
--E.C. Osondu, author of Alien Stories (BOA Short Fiction Prize) and Voice of America (Caine Prize for African Writing)
Author Biography
Sohrab Homi Fracis is the first Asian American to win the Iowa Short Fiction Award, for his debut collection, Ticket to Minto: Stories of India and America. Publishers Weekly called it "A reminder of how satisfying the short story form can be...the work of an impressive new talent." India Currents pronounced it "Stunning in its breadth and scope of language and description." His novel, Go Home, was shortlisted worldwide by Stanford University Libraries for the William Saroyan International Prize. Singapore Poetry described it as "newly poignant and even heartbreaking." Folio Weekly said of it, "Fracis is both a deft realist and master mesmerist." He taught literature and creative writing at University of North Florida. He was Twin Cities Visiting Writer in Residence at Augsburg University and Artist in Residence at Yaddo. He received the Florida Individual Artist Fellowship in Literature/Fiction. The South Asian Literary Association bestowed on him its Distinguished Achievement Award.
