Neighbors and Other Stories (Faber Editions)

Haunting tales of life in the racially divided 1960s American South by a lost star of Black literature, introduced by Tayari Jones

''This breathtaking collection is a marvel ... One of my literary foremothers.'' Tayari Jones ''Astute, brilliantly observed, these timeless stories are remarkable. It''s all the more poignant to know the writer died at such a heartbreakingly young age:'' Jackie Kay ''Oliver exquisitely projects the biggest narrative of mid-century America - Jim Crow - onto the smallest realities of everyday Black life. These stories are all gems.'' Mendez ''Prose of such unexpected grace, with such sharp Gothic swerves, that you hold your breath, completely at Oliver''s mercy. What a talent.'' Lucy Caldwell And she was becoming frightened too, looking at all those white faces pressed against the windowpanes. One Black family comes under attack as their little boy prepares to start at an all-white school. Friends plan a protest sit-in at the Rose Crest Tea Room, only to be arrested. The first Black student - always the ''Experiment'' - retreats into her closet at a newly integrated college. And when a social worker enters a secluded woodland cabin, she meets the fate of all visitors . . . Tragically killed aged twenty-two in 1966, Diane Oliver''s masterly stories resonate today with renewed urgency. Steeped in the nightmarish horror of life for the Black community in the Jim Crow-era American South, these chilling tales explore toxic racism and the human toll of activism for ''the cause'' with heartbreaking empathy and wisdom. Depicting African American families whole and broken, daily injustices and life-threatening political struggle, Neighbors restores a lost star to the twentieth-century literary canon.

Auteur
Diane Oliver (1943 - 1966) was born in Charlotte, North Carolina. Her father was a teacher and later administrator in public schools; her mother was a piano teacher. After graduating from a segregated public high school, she attended Women's College (which later became the University of North Carolina at Greensboro) and was the Managing Editor of The Carolinian, the student newspaper. She published four short stories in her lifetime and two more posthumously: 'Key to the City' and 'Neighbors' published in The Sewanee Review in 1966; 'Health Service', 'Traffic Jam' and 'Mint Juleps Not Served Here' in Negro Digest in 1965, 1966 and 1967; and 'The Closet on the Top Floor' in Southern Writing in the Sixties in 1966. 'Neighbors' was a recipient of an O. Henry Award in 1967. Diane began graduate work at the University of Iowa's Writers' Workshop and was awarded the MFA degree posthumously days after her death in a motorcycle accident in 1966, aged just 22.

Résumé

AS CELEBRATED ON BBC FRONT ROW

'This breathtaking collection is a marvel.' Tayari Jones
'Astute, brilliantly observed, timeless:' Jackie Kay
'Her precocious and brilliant talent hasn't aged at all.' Damon Galgut
'Exquisite ... These stories are all gems.' Mendez
'You hold your breath, completely at her mercy.' Lucy Caldwell
*
And she was becoming frightened too, looking at all those white faces pressed against the windowpanes.*

One Black family comes under attack as their little boy prepares to start at an all-white school.
Friends plan a protest sit-in at the Rose Crest Tea Room, only to be arrested.
The first Black student - always the 'Experiment' - retreats into her closet at a newly integrated college.
And when a social worker enters a secluded woodland cabin, she meets the fate of all visitors . . .

Tragically killed aged twenty-two in 1966, Diane Oliver's masterly stories resonate today with renewed urgency. Steeped in the nightmarish horror of life for the Black community in the Jim Crow-era American South, these chilling tales explore toxic racism and the human toll of activism for 'the cause' with heartbreaking empathy and wisdom. Depicting African American families whole and broken, daily injustices and life-threatening political struggle, Neighbors restores a lost star to the twentieth-century literary canon.