The winning story in the Soclalist Challenge short story competition was Refugees by Jim Crace. We will over the next year attempt to print all the storles mentioned in the paper. The comments of the three judges were as follows:
Terry Eagleton I chose Retugees powerful story, with a rather unexpected twist at the end, Its realism is unobtrusive. I his writing as well as its stylistic qualitie My second choice was Sue Aspinall's The Same ELODION Angles which was slightly experimental but pleasing none the less. My third chaice was LEYE Sea. This Is uneven, but strong and would some editing and rewriting befor John Fowles Three stories stood out for me among the eight finalists Third place Kinmount's Criminal and Liberal, recreation of & working class child's murder in Newcastle. . Unfortunately the central part (the CHild's first-person crippling background and the murder was good that made the surrounding framework distinclly cumbersome. There could be a fine, if technicaily very difficult novel told trom this child's aye view of Where 1he quilt really des in such cases Second place to Stephen Chalke's Pretty Bubbles In the Air, a nicely shaded study of the multiple alienations, both personal and social, underlying the friendship between two young men, al done in the context of a West Ham home maich. With one or two very smail revisions, this would be well worth publishing Atrican story, Refugees, A common failing among the other stories ConsEnors wo too Disch ad white but Jim Crace's quite literally black and white characters were much more sklifully interwoven, which makes the final moral all convincing The creation of and character were 8iso In a class on their own. Look forwand to reading more of this obviously gitted A simple story, written out of a real and not a received experience, property shaped and (most difficult to achievel moving without being sentimental. Stephen Chalke Is the kind of a natural writer (and there are tow enough of them about) who can find meaning in ordinary axperience. He could afford to throw out a lew adjectives and br more precise in his use of language, but never mind (what Is a distracted look?) 2. Criminal and Liberal by Pat Kinmount written, 89Se and confidence: an imaginative excursion into words of pain and deprivation. If i don't put the feel of a writer standing on the brim of experience siorino into the maestrom rather then of one who's dragging himsel out, and because it hammers a point o three too hard Same Problem From Different Angles by Sue Aspinal Third place in spite of reading more like a draft than a finished work: she didn't solve her own problem, which was dovetals: general comment and particula people. But a real and generous offerin from a good writer to the outside worid pain controlled, Indignation restrained and theretore communicable.
SOCIALIST CHALLENGE, 15-31 December 1977. paged
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y JIM CRACE had to say
Fay Weldon Chatty Bubbles in the Alr by Stepher