Kingdom of the Young — Edie Meidav

"Ambitious, original, deliciously philosophical. Kingdom of the Young invites comparison to the crônicas of Clarice Lispector and the fabulas of Italo Calvino."  -- Carolyn Cooke, author of Daughters of the Revolution

The dynamic characters in Kingdom of the Young are searching: for adventure, work, love, absolution, better chances elsewhere. In a symphonic stream of consciousness, a fanatical child army loses faith in its commander as he ages unforgivably into his thirties. A woman possessed with wanderlust and a small inheritance seeks love among the cave-dwelling Roma in Granada. Traumatized war veterans run local rackets; smarmy bureaucrats rise through the ranks of repressive regimes; civilians attempt to escape the stranglehold of life under dictatorships. From the honeycombed caves outside the Alhambra to the streets of Havana, from hospital wards to quinceañera parties, these stories -- along with the collection's illuminating nonfiction coda -- testify to Meidav's vast imaginative range.

Edie Meidav is the author of three novels -- The Far Field, Crawl Space, and Lola, California. Her honors include a Lannan Literary Award, the Kafka Award for Best Novel by an American Woman, the Bard Fiction Prize, a Whiting Award, and a Howard Fellowship. She teaches in the University of Massachusetts MFA program and lives in Amherst.