2011 Barthelme Prize for Short Prose

Sarah Manguso

       Good prose provides an emotional experience (feeling) wrapped in an intellectual experience (reading). The particular problem of short prose is—well, its shortness. How can several hundred words compel without begging? Allow me to introduce Erica Olsen’s “Grand Canyon II.”
       The story begins innocuously—“For a long time I wanted to go back to the Grand Canyon”—but ends by doubting the worth of the entire actual world. Like all good narratives, it suggests great consequence. This ultimately comforting story, in its intense particularity and assiduous coherence, casts a beacon on elemental themes: the past is another country. The task of memory is impossible. No one exists and nothing ever happened. But somewhere in your brain, a beautiful lie is being spun….


        Sarah Manguso
        contest judge