The first book in English by an acclaimed Danish writer: "beautiful, faceted, haunting stories . . . [from] a rising star" (Junot Díaz)

Karate Chop, Dorthe Nors's acclaimed story collection, is the debut book in the collaboration between Graywolf Press and A Public Space. These fifteen compact stories are meticulously observed glimpses of everyday life that expose the ominous lurking under the ordinary. While his wife sleeps, a husband prowls the Internet, obsessed with female serial killers; a bureaucrat tries to reinvent himself, exposing goodness as artifice when he converts to Buddhism in search of power; a woman sits on the edge of the bed where her lover lies, attempting to locate a motive for his violence within her own self-doubt. Shifting between moments of violence (real and imagined) and mundane contemporary life, these stories encompass the complexity of human emotions, our capacity for cruelty as well as compassion. Not so much minimalist as stealthy, Karate Chop delivers its blows with an understatement that shows a master at work.

Binding Type: Paperback
Publisher: Graywolf Press
Published: 02/04/2014
ISBN: 9781555976651
Pages: 112
Weight: 0.29lbs
Size: 7.94h x 5.65w x 0.28d

Review Citations: Kirkus Reviews 11/01/2013
Publishers Weekly 11/11/2013
Booklist 01/01/2014 pg. 42
Shelf Awareness 02/07/2014
New York Times Book Review 03/09/2014 pg. 30
Publishers Weekly Best Books 11/03/2014 pg. 30