Even Pretty Eyes, by M J Hyland, has been shortlisted for the BBC International Short Story Prize (2012). That’s two years in a row. See BBC Front Row for podcasts and interviews:
M J Hyland - ‘Even Pretty Eyes Commit Crimes’
The adult narrator, who many years down the line still sees his father as somehow culpable for his mother’s departure, and tires of his father’s dependence on him, is forced to reassess his relationships, as it becomes apparent that his wife is leaving him too.
M J on the story: ‘The story began when I wrote a sentence in my notebook. The sentence came from nowhere, unbidden. I don’t know anything about pineapples, don’t like hairy fruit, haven’t ever eaten one, but the image barged in.’
M J Hyland’s first novel, How the Light Gets In (2003), was shortlisted for the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize. Her second, Carry me Down (2006), won the Hawthornden and Encore Prizes in 2007 and was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize. Her third novel, This is How, was longlisted for both the Orange Prize and the International IMPAC Prize. M J Hyland’s short fiction has been published frequently in Zoetrope: All Story,Blackbook Magazine (USA) and Best Australian Short Stories.
