Cirrus@Austlit

'Agabande, Rwanda, April 1994. The children in the village are doing childlike things, playing with toys they make themselves, going to school and church on Sunday. Doing their chores. But there are whispers and looks, and messages of hate on the radio, and people are leaving. Pascal is a good boy, trying his best, but the world he knows is about to change forever. ' (Publication summary)

'In his acclaimed collection, Town, James Roy used the short story to chart the social tapestry of a country town as seen through the eyes of thirteen young residents. The young people in City are linked in very different ways - through chance meetings, found objects, social connections, the civil disobedience of the shadowy Poet and the streets of a city.

'Like the town in its companion collection, this place has no name. But any reader who has ever lived in a city will find it immediately familiar.

'A striking collection of connected stories that reflect our lives and those of the people that we pass each day. (From the publisher's website.)

'Once, in a street not very far from yours, there lived a girl called Anonymity Jones.

'Anonymity's life is falling apart. Her father has left to have a mid-life crisis, her mother's new boyfriend is a definite worry, her Europe-bound sister has changed her name (just to make a point) and all her girl friends are now girlfriends, with boyfriends.

'And then there's the art teacher.

'Anonymity is losing control, and it's decision time. Does she hang on, get out, or get even?' (From the publisher's website.)