Daniyal Mueenuddin Wins The 2010 Story Prize

If you happened to pass by 12^th and 5^th at around seven o’clock Wednesday night, you may have noticed a crowd of people politely idling alongside the New School’s Tishman Auditorium. Those familiar with the Tishman might have questioned whether they would all fit inside — indeed, veterans of the event expressed surprise at the generous turnout — but you got the feeling, as you took in their expectant stances, their dunnish semi-formalwear, their air of rumpled abstraction, that that wasn’t about to stop them from trying. They had assembled for the annual presentation of the Story Prize and, plainly, they were literary types past all curing.

On the shortlist for this year’s prize was Daniyal Mueenuddin, author of the collection In Other Rooms, Other Wonders; Victoria Patterson, author of Drift; and Wells Tower, the Falstaffian author of the (still more) Falstaffian Everything Ravaged, Everything Burned.

Separately, the three took the stage to read excerpts from their eligible work and submit to interviews by Larry Dark, the director of the Story Prize.  Then they returned to their seats to suffer their fates, as writers invariably do, slouched in the semi-dark.

The stakes were considerable – but not zero-sum.  The runners-up would receive $5,000 dollars apiece.  The winner, however, would take $20,000, as well as an object – concave, rounded, baroquely engraved – positioned somewhere between a salad bowl and the Holy Grail.

The night kicked off with an introduction by Mr. Dark.  As well as a bumbling brand of charisma, he exhibited a distinct tendency to bravado.  “Short fiction is on something of a roll, lately.”  Mr. Dark said this out of the corner of his mouth, as if betraying high-level military secrets.

Sure, the nominal purpose of the evening may have been to fete, even fawn over, three writers at the meridian of their art.  Those who thought the three would just sit there and take it as the praise hailed down on them, however, were lavishly mistaken.

Said Mueenuddin, a half-Pakistani, half-American who is also a quasi-feudal landowner in Pakistan’s southern Punjab:

“[My employees] think it’s almost embarrassing, writing – certainly nothing to be proud of.  You know, you do it with your left hand.

“[. . .]

“If I were Bulgarian, nobody would be reading my stuff.  It’s because Pakistan is in the news [that my fiction has done well].  The Taliban should get half my royalties.”

Clearly the line of the night, it didn’t stop others from trying to best it.

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