Long-time Houston resident Anis Shivani (twitter) will read from his collection The Fifth Lash and Other Stories at Brazos Bookstore (map) on June 13th at 7pm. The Fifth Lash was recently released by C&R Press and currently on the longlist for international Frank O’Connor short story award.
The Fifth Lash and Other Stories received advance praise from Ron Rash, Gina Ochsner, George Singleton, Murzban Shroff, and others. Publishers Weekly wrote: “These new stories from Shivani, many set in Pakistan, parse the disconnect between public and private behavior, and the desires that must be muted in order for people to survive. Shivani is a perceptive writer who puts his finger on the contradictions his characters navigate to survive daily life.”
Anis’s debut novel Karachi Raj will be released in October 2013. In criticism, Anis’s books include Against the Workshop (2011), the recently completed Literature at the Global Crossroads, and a book in progress called Plastic Realism: Neoliberal Discourse in the New American Novel. Anis’s other books include My Tranquil War and Other Poems (2012), Anatolia and Other Stories (2009), the recently completed Soraya: Sonnets, and a novel in progress, Abruzzi, 1936.
Anis’s work appears in the Southwest Review, Boston Review, Threepenny Review, Prairie Schooner, Agni, Epoch, Fence, Boulevard, Pleiades, Denver Quarterly, George Review, Iowa Review, Michigan Quarterly Review, Antioch Review, Subtropics, Colorado Review, Times Literary Supplement, London Magazine, Cambridge Quarterly, and many other journals. He won a 2012 Pushcart Prize, and graduated from Harvard College.