Lost and Found: Short Stories from the Cheshire Prize for Literature 2012

‘He is my miracle,’ says Sarah Frost Mellor’s protagonist, of her lover, Joe: ‘Found by accident, in the least likely of places.’ Sarah won the 2012 Cheshire Prize for Literature with her short story ‘Udumbara in Lytham St Anne’s’, and it’s in this modest seaside town that Lost and Found begins. Reading through the stories in this collection, the reader will ‘find’ many things: surreal flotsam on a desolate beach; a love letter mislaid for decades; turns of phrase in a classroom; relationships shaped in unusual settings. But to find something means simultaneously to acknowledge the possibility of loss. And loss figures largely in the anthology, too: from beloved relatives, to despised spouses, and from inconsequential objects to an individual’s very sense of self, life’s losses are portrayed here in a variety of humorous, dark, and frequently surprising ways.

The Cheshire Prize for Literature was inaugurated in 2003 as the High Sheriff’s Cheshire Prize for Literature. It is funded by the Bank of America Europe Card Services and is administered by the University of Chester. The 2012 competition was for short stories, and this collection contains 24 of the shortlisted entries, including those of the eventual winner. Details of the Prize are available at: http://www.chester.ac.uk/literatureprize

Emma L. E. Rees (Editor), Lost and Found: Short Stories from the Cheshire Prize for Literature 2012, 2013, ISBN 978-1-908258-10-6, £11.99.

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