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Selected Shorts / February 15, 2009

Selected Shorts

Sunday, February 15, 2009
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    Passions Run Deep

    ”The irony of his playing the song straight and from the heart was made more ironic by the fact that as he played it, it came straight and from his heart, as he was claiming Southern soil, or at lest recognizing his blood in it. His was the land of cotton and hell no, it was not forgotten. –Percival Everett, “The Appropriation of Cultures.”

    Racial prejudices are met and mastered in unexpected ways in two contemporary tales.

In each of these two very American stories, different as they may be from each other, one harrowing and the other hilarious, a fervent belief drives the narrative along. The first story on this program, Tobias Wolff’s “Bible,” is from an annual Symphony Space evening devoted to the Houghton Mifflin volume The Best American Short Stories, edited in 2008 by Salman Rushdie. The story’s alarming opening scenario—a woman hijacked in her car--gives way to developments that surprise both us and its heroine. Wolff is the celebrated author of such volumes as In the Garden of North American Martyrs and This Boy’s Life. His most recent (2008) collection is Our Story Begins. The reader, Jane Alexander, has had a career ranging from Broadway to Hollywood (her work includes “The Great White Hope” and “The Sisters Rosensweig.”) to running the National Endowment for the Arts.

Our next story, Percival Everett’s extraordinary “The Appropriation of Cultures,” also defies our expectations as its hero hits on a novel strategy for defeating racial prejudice. A favorite with SELECTED SHORTS live audiences, its author has produced 16 novels, three collections of short fiction, and two volumes of poetry. The reader is the Tony Award-winning (“Seven Guitars”) Broadway actor and director Ruben Santiago-Hudson.

“Bible” by Tobias Wolff, read by Jane Alexander
“The Appropriation of Cultures” by Percival Everett, read by Ruben Santiago-Hudson.

For additional works featured on SELECTED SHORTS, please visit Symphony Space

For information about the 2009 Stella Kupferberg Memorial Short Story Prize contest, go to Selected Shorts

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  • [1] Maria C. Little from United States February 27, 2009 - 09:26PM

    I LOVED The appropriation of Cultures!. thank you
  • [2] Greg Waters from Bellingham, WA March 01, 2009 - 01:54PM

    'Appropriation of Cultures' is such a wonderfully enlightening story that I want to share it with my wife. I would gladly purchase it, but if it is available I can't find where. If anyone could steer me to it I would be grateful.

    From the producers:

    Thank you for your interest in Percival Everett's wonderful story. Specific citations for the stories featured on SELECTED SHORTS are available at our website, www.selectedshorts.org. and you can also check to see if this work has been offered on one of Symphony Space's CD compilations.

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