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The
Banta Award 1983
The
1983 Banta Award BOOK The struggles of ordinary people — lovers, husbands and wives, parents and children — are presented. Rather than dispensing solutions to the reader, Engberg shows real people who question life, who share conflicting feelings, and who try to make a life for themselves. Calling it a "stunning collection," Publishers Weekly selected one statement which reflects the quest of all leading figures: "It is said we are born not knowing that which we are. It is said we can be taught. Here. On this earth." Each character inches nearer to knowledge. In each story the reader is enriched by intimate acquaintance with the central characters while dipping into short periods of their lives. Descriptions of the slightest details expand everyday reality. Symbolic dreams offer the reader an opportunity to individually attach meaning and significance to their interpretation. The New York Times Book Review declares the stories in Pastorale to be "so good that they could change your life." Calling the stories spiritually transcendent," Russell Banks states that the characters "become more consciously human and for that reason exemplary... (They) discover roles in life larger than the roles assigned to them by their individual personalities, their gene pools or accident — what one might call fate." Engberg writes with calm assurance, exceptional sensitivity, and great skill. "A powerful sense of peace, of caring and quiet affirmation are projected," observes Edith Brin of The Milwaukee Journal. Susan Engberg's understanding of human nature combined with her literary talent are truly gifts to all. The following stories are included in the book: Lambs of God - A mother seeking to prove her own worth, wanting a better life, needing illumination. A child's confused feelings one afternoon while visiting the family farm, then finding happiness and forgiveness with a new-born lamb. Pastorale - A woman finally releasing the sorrow of her ten-year-old daughter's death, becoming reunited with her own inner child, feeling a quickened outpouring of love. Small Voices - A man whose wife has left, his life becoming feasible again, his heart altered by his brief connection with a woman of special healing power. In the Land of Plenty - An abused wife, abandoned along with her two young children, learning how to live, disconnecting from the past, gaining her own power, finding peace. Trio - A father, caring for two young daughters during his wife's year-long absence. Husband, wife and children discovering new parts of themselves, creating deeper, mutually dependent relationships. Lap of Peace - A young couple expecting their second child, resolving conflict regarding repair of their 90-year-old country home. The woman asking what one does with a fortunate life where "we're not starving, we're not political prisoners, we're not trying to escape across the mountains or the sea." The Face of the Deep - A single woman and her male friend cautiously beginning a new relationship. The woman asking herself if she's preparing for something more essential to be added to her life. Parts of Speech - A 57-year-old widow working through her grief, helplessly feeling she had done all she had known how to do and still her husband had died, reliving early years of marriage one afternoon while visiting an old farm - and now, going on. The
AUTHOR Susan Herr Engberg was born in Dubuque, Iowa on June 12, 1940. After studying art and literature at Lawrence University, she graduated cum laude Phi Beta Kappa in 1962 with a B.A. in English. Susan has published short stories in such publications as Sewanee Review, Kenyon Review, Ploughshares, Southern Review, Prairie Schooner, and Iowa Review. Three stories were reprinted in Prize Stories: The O'Henry Awards in 1969, 1977 and 1978 and one in The Pushcart Prize VI. Since college, Susan's living environments have varied from New York, New Haven, and Chicago to an Iowa farm. She worked for American Field Service Scholarships, was an editorial assistant for the Publications Department of the New York Metropolitan Museum of Art, transcribed a 16th century manuscript for the St. Thomas More Project at Yale University, taught writing to adults and teenagers at a store-front library in New Haven, served as assistant fiction editor for the Iowa Review, and taught a one month seminar at the Writer's Workshop at the University of Iowa. Susan, whose husband Charles is an architect, moved back to Wisconsin in 1979. With their two daughters, Siri and Gillian, they reside on the east side of Milwaukee where Susan now devotes her professional time completely to writing short fiction. 1983 WLA Literary Awards Committee
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