Medals and Prizes

Medals and Prizes brings together eight of the best stories and novellas by John Metcalf, a virtuosic champion of the short form. Metcalf was born in Carlisle and emigrated to Canada as a young man, where both his innovations as a prose stylist and his talent as an editor are legendary. Until now, he has never been published in Britain. Spanning more than fifty years, and ranging from some of his earliest published stories to the astonishing late-career 'Medals and Prizes', the work gathered here shows us a writer whose voice and ingenuity, at every stage of his career, is unmistakeable. Entertaining and moving and mischievous, these elegant fictions are a homecoming for a writer ready to assume his rank among Britain's great short fiction masters.

Born in Carlisle in 1938, John Metcalf emigrated to Canada in 1962, where he became a lauded writer and a vocal champion of the short story form, as an editor nurturing some of Canada's great talents from early in their careers. He is the author of more than a dozen works of fiction and non-fiction, including Going Down Slow, Kicking Against the Pricks and Adult Entertainment, which was a New York Times Book Review Notable Book. He lives in Ottawa.