Scandal at the Alphorn Factory

Winner of the 2025 Hamilton Literary Award for Fiction

A new collection of stories by Giller Prize finalist Gary Barwin that puts the fab in fabulist.

Scandal at the Alphorn Factory: New and Selected Short Fiction, 1984–2024 couples brand new and uncollected stories with selections of the most playful and ambitious of Barwin’s previous collections, including Cruelty to Fabulous Animals, Big Red Baby, Doctor Weep and Other Strange Teeth, and I, Dr. Greenblatt, Orthodontist, 251–1457.

Barwin’s prose kicks against short fiction’s more traditional forms: these are pieces that flirt with poetry and playwriting. Whole stories—and worlds—are packed into single compact paragraphs. There are narrators and fleas and lists and imperatives and Hitler’s moustache and radiant happiness.

Known as a “whiz-bang storyteller” who can deliver magical, dream-like sequences and truisms about the human condition in the same paragraph, Barwin’s trademark brilliance, wit, and originality are on display in this can’t-miss collection of short fiction.

Gary Barwin is the author of 31 books of fiction, poetry and non-fiction and has published, performed and broadcast his work internationally. His national bestselling novel Yiddish for Pirates won the Leacock Medal for Humour, was a finalist for the Governor General’s Award for Fiction and the Scotiabank Giller Prize and was longlisted for Canada Reads. He lives in Hamilton, Ontario and at garybarwin.com