Books Books
Category: Ebooks, Fiction, Short Stories
Number of pages: 128
ISBN: 9781854114419
Publication date: February 22, 2007
Price: £6.99
Out of stock
Category: Ebooks, Fiction, Short Stories
Number of pages: 128
ISBN: 9781781721308
Publication date: February 22, 2007
Price: £5.59
Out of stock
Pumping Up Napoleon is an assured collection of fifteen short stories with an offbeat take on human relationships, and the relationship of the rather unreliable human body to mind and spirit. ‘Offbeat’ includes dog massage, cloning your own four-foot son for organ transplants, and a university lecturer’s romance with a resurrected Napoleon Bonaparte.
Maria Donovan takes us on a bizarre, funny and often touching tour of death and laughter, love and space travel. Her light, humorous touch allows darker strands to surface repeatedly – dislocated, lonely lives, out of sync with their surroundings are set alongside human oddity and tenderness. These understated, well-crafted stories constantly surprise and engage, producing a fine, enjoyable and thought-provoking first collection.
Maria Donovan
Maria Donovan is a native of Dorset and has strong connections with Wales and Holland. Past career choices include training as a nurse in the Netherlands, busking with music and fire around Europe and nine years as a lecturer in Creative Writing at the University of Glamorgan.
Among her publications are: Tea for Mr Dead, flash fiction (Leaf, 2006) and Pumping Up Napoleon and other stories (Seren, 2007). Further short stories appear in anthologies: ‛The House Demon’ in Sing, Sorrow, Sorrow (Seren, 2010), ‛The Wish Dog’ in The Wish Dog and other stories (Honno, 2014) and ‛Learning to Say До Свидания’ in New Welsh Short Stories (Seren, 2015). She draws on her experiences of place and of crossing borders, for instance in ‛Slaughterhouse Field’, commissioned for the New Welsh Review, and set amongst caravan people in Holland. Her fiction is often offbeat, exploring uneasy relationships, mind and body: ‛My Own CVA’ was a prizewinner in a competition run by The Lancet; ‘My Cousin’s Breasts’ was shortlisted for the Fish Short Story Prize. Her flash fiction story ‘Chess’ won the Dorset Award in the Bridport Prize 2015.
Maria’s debut novel, The Chicken Soup Murder, was a finalist for the Dundee International Book Prize.
