Best European Fiction 2011

'What exactly is a European writer?' asks Colum McCann in the preface of this rather unique anthology which traverses Europe. As he suggests, the words 'Europe' and 'European' are simply umbrella terms that encapsulate a broad spectrum of nationalities, identities and characteristics.

The 40 stories carefully selected and edited by Bosnian-born writer Aleksandar Hemon are suitably varied and are written by authors from 38 different countries across the continent. Many of the stories tell us something about the writer's native country, while others also tell us about other countries in Europe and further afield. Spanish writer Enrique Vila-Matas writes about the life of a family in the depths of Siberia, while Serbian writer Vladimir Arsenijevic tells the tale of a Bosnian ex-soldier who moves to Barcelona.

This is the second offering of the annual anthology and it shows that there is still plenty of European literary talent to discover and rediscover.  Although the collection includes a number of established names, there are also several writers that appear in English for the very first time. Perhaps it is both this multifaceted and all-encompassing nature which makes the collection, and Europe as a whole, so compelling.