Showing results by author "David Constantine" in All Categories

The 5 shortlisted titles for the BBC National Short Story Award 2010 administered in partnership with Booktrust, containing:Tea at the Midland by David ConstantineDavid Constantine 2010 Haywards Heath by Aminatta FornaAminatta Forna 2010Butcher’s Perfume by Sarah HallSarah Hall 2010If It Keeps on Raining by Jon McGregorJon McGregor 2010My Daughter the Racist by Helen OyeyemiHelen Oyeyemi 2010

The stories of David Constantine are unlike any others. His characters possess you instantly, making you see the world as they do, sometimes as exiles, driven into isolation by convictions that even they don't fully understand; sometimes as carriers of an unspoken but unbearable weight. The things they pursue or evade are often unseen and at a distance, like the perfectly preserved body of a woman in the title story, waiting to be discovered in the receding ice of a Swiss glacier.

Don’t go in the water. It’s dark. It’s deep. It’s scary as hell. There is no better keeper of secrets than the menacing, murky depths of the ocean. Unfathomable creatures, mysterious disappearances, abandoned ships, deadly pirates. Even experienced seamen are susceptible to the horrors that lay hidden far below the surface. It’s all a game of chance. Be in the wrong place at the wrong time and you’ll become something’s meal. The dark deep is ominous and unforgiving and it has no conscience.