Winner of the 2010 Frank O'Connor Award, BURNING BRIGHT confirms Ron Rash 'could sit comfortably beside Cormac McCarthy on any bookshelf' (Guardian)

A FARMER and his wife fall on hard times. They haven't lost everything the way others have, but they have lost enough. Their hope for a better future comes under threat when they discover an intruder on their land.

A WOMAN from a small town marries an outsider. Her love for him battles with her suspicions that he is the source of the fires ravaging the mountains.

A YOUNG BOY, neglected by his parents, sits in the remains of a crashed plane and lovingly tends to two frozen bodies.

These remarkable stories and many more can be found in Burning Bright, an award-winning collection that captures the complexities of a place and conjures characters that will burn bright in your mind long after you have finished reading.

"The dozen stories [in Burning Bright]...have led to justifiable comparisons with Raymond Carver and Cormac McCarthy. ... These are tales that put you in another place, another kind of life. Recommended" - * Daily Mail *

"Rash tells great stories, raw and powerful, but he is above all, an instinctive writer. These narratives, whether told in his laconic first person, or in a detached third-person voice, are well served by his flawless use of language. Every word carries meaning and intent . . . Rash possesses a realist's vision that resounds with truth" - * Irish Times *

"Rash's prose is at once strong and supple, masculine and poetic, and lit up by a wealth of precise physical detail. ... His power of conveying landscape is exemplary, and he has a sure understanding of the measure and constraints of the short-story form" - * Sunday Times *

"An exciting collection of short stories . . . delivered with such a surety of hand and such a considered distillation of the human spirit as to warrant the comparisons to Faulkner and Carver" - * Independent on Sunday *

"Technically absolutely beautiful - incredibly well-wrought...[Rash] is a real storyteller, a real craftsman." - * Judge of the Frank O'Connor Short Story Award and books editor of the Sunday Business Post *

"Superb; the great American short story at its best" - * The Times *

"Searing...A nicely varied feast from a master of the form." - * Kirkus Reviews (starred review) *

"Rash's evocative rendering of the blighted landscape and the tough characters who inhabit it recalls both John Steinbeck and Cormac McCarthy." - * New Yorker on SERENA *

"Could sit comfortably on any bookshelf beside Cormac McCarthy or Charles Frazier" - * Guardian on SERENA *

"What superb stories come from Ron Rash's pen, the kind that truly put all others in the shade. His stories buck the trend for "moments" in a life that go unexplained: Rash wants you to understand, urgently and fully, what has taken place" - * Independent on Sunday *