Ritual, 1969

This third collection of stories from Jerwood Prize-winning author Jo Mazelis ups the tension by introducing an elusive strand of the otherworldly; whether the ghostly as in Caretakers and Storm Dogs, delusion and illusion, as in the strange workings of the characters’ imagination in Ritual 1969, Levitation and Velvet, or the magic realism of Atlantic Exchange. Very often a disquieting tone refuses to guide the reader to the truth, creating a sense of unease. These short stories allow varied glimpses of their subject matter, so that the whole is never quite seen, leaving the reader to put the pieces together and draw their own conclusions. And as ever, Mazelis’ prose is poetic and lyrical, psychologically intense and seemingly strangely truthful. Ranging across different times and places, from early twentieth-century France through 1960s South Wales to contemporary Europe, and across different genres, what holds this collection together is Mazelis’ singular vision and unswerving recreation of characters who are caught up in events and feelings they do not understand and cannot control.

Jo Mazelis is a writer and photographer. Her first collection of stories Diving Girls 2003 (Parthian) was shortlisted for the Commonwealth Best First Book and Wales Book of the Year and her second collection Circle Games, 2005, longlisted for the Wales Book of the year. Her first novel, Significance, a cosmopolitan feminist noir thriller set in northern France was a winner of the Jerwood Fiction Uncovered Prize in 2015. Jo Mazelis’ stories have won prizes in the Rhys Davies, Penfro and Allen Raine?competitions, have been published in many anthologies and magazines, and read on Radio 4.