Tiger, Tiger

Shortlisted for the 2019 Alistair MacLeod Prize for Short Fiction

“Skibsrud’s writing is a pleasure, with its shortish sentences, snappy prose, and mixture of formal speech and slang combining to create a recognizably 21st-century voice.”—Quill & Quire

“The juxtaposition of the mysterious with the mundane, the unexpected idea illuminating a life, are not only engrossing, but open the reader’s mind to genuine insight about one’s own reality. These stories, like life, are complex….Skibsrud is a master…[she] can make your head spin and dares you to think.”—Winnipeg Free Press

“An astonishing collection of short stories…Some are long and multi-layered; others are intense vignettes, like small sharp stones glittering on the beach. All are brilliantly constructed with not a word out of place, and are full of wisdom and insight into human beings. Skibsrud writes elegantly about deep-thinking characters on a quest for love, for connection and for meaning in life, whether they live in the present or the 26th century.”—The Chronicle Herald

“Johanna Skibsrud has a way of introducing you to the most unlikely situations and turning them into something that you feel you have experienced yourself, like an uncovered, necessary truth, a story that was waiting to be told. In clever, incisive, and heartfelt prose, she illuminates the past, the present, and the future of humanity as if everything was happening now, here, inside of you, within your pulse.”—Catherine Leroux, author of The Party Wall

“Johanna Skibsrud’s new collection Tiger, Tiger is brimming with provocations and marvels. In a tour de force of imagination like its Blakean predecessor, these fourteen speculative tales travel the big mysteries of origin and destiny. Such wanderings (and wonderings) culminate beautifully in the book’s final words: “Which path is more honest in the end? And by whom, or by what, are we judged?” Happily, Skibsrud manages to convey philosophical depth with a light, almost whimsical heart, via her tenderly rendered, frequently befuddled characters. Each of these stories is a thrill and a pleasure.”—Karen Brennan, author of Monsters