Now We Will Be Happy (The Raz/Shumaker Prairie Schooner Book Prize in Fiction) - Softcover

Gautier, Amina

Softcover

ISBN 10: 080325539X ISBN 13: 9780803255395

Publisher: University of Nebraska Press, 2014

Synopsis

Now We Will Be Happy is a prize-winning collection of stories about Afro-Puerto Ricans, U.S.-mainland-born Puerto Ricans, and displaced native Puerto Ricans who are living between spaces while attempting to navigate the unique culture that defines their identity. Amina Gautier's characters deal with the difficulties of bicultural identities in a world that wants them to choose only one.
The characters in Now We Will Be Happy are as unpredictable as they are human. A teenage boy leaves home in search of the mother he hasn't seen since childhood; a granddaughter is sent across the ocean to broker peace between her relatives; a widow seeks to die by hurricane; a married woman takes a bathtub voyage with her lover; a proprietress who is the glue that binds her neighborhood cannot hold on to her own son; a displaced wife develops a strange addiction to candles. 
Crossing boundaries of comfort, culture, language, race, and tradition in unexpected ways, these characters struggle valiantly and doggedly to reconcile their fantasies of happiness with the realities of their existence.


Winner of the Eric Hoffer Legacy Award in Fiction

Winner of the International Latino Book Award

Winner of an International Book Award (Literary Fiction Category)

Winner of a National Silver IPPY Award (Multicultural Fiction Category)

Winner of a Florida Authors and Publishers Association Award (Short Story Fiction Category)

Winner of a USA Best Book Award (African American Fiction Category)

Finalist, Next Generation Indie Book Award (Short Story Fiction Category)

Finalist, National Indie Excellence Award (Short Stories Category)

Longlisted for the Chautauqua Prize in Fiction

Shortlisted for the William Saroyan International Prize

About this title

About the Author

Amina Gautier teaches in the department of English at the University of Miami. She is a winner of the Flannery O’Connor Award for Short Fiction. Her work has appeared in numerous literary journals, including Antioch Review, Glimmer Train, Iowa Review, Kenyon Review, and Southern Review.

From the Back Cover

"In these richly textured and at times heartbreaking stories, AminaGautier forges the links between generations and across oceans. She is abuilder of bridges as she strives to find that middle ground between the twoislands--Manhattan and Puerto Rico--that exert their tug on her characters andshape who they are and what they become."--Mary Morris, author of Revenge


"In these moving, dramatic stories about hunger and fullness, AminaGautier explores what it means to strive and live in the margins of Americanhope. Her shrewd compassion brings together characters determined to be happyand shows the cost of happiness with vivid, rich intelligence."--Erin McGraw, author of Better Foodfor a Better World

Edition details

• Publisher: University of Nebraska Press
• Publication date: 2014
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 080325539X
• ISBN 13: 9780803255395
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 140