By Siamak Vossoughi
Narrated By Khai Lannor
Length: 4 hrs and 18 mins
Release Date: 02-25-21

SUMMARY

The fable-like stories in A Sense of the Whole - reminiscent of the best of Kawabata, Hrabal, Lispector, and Kafka - create profound effects on the listener within very short spaces. Small in size, but not in resonance, Siamak Vossoughi's stories feature characters who refuse to believe that we are unconnected, refuse to not aspire to the notion of the human family across all manner of differences. These characters are girls and boys, men and women, Iranians and Americans, all seeking a home for the body and the soul.

A Sense of the Whole

PRAISE

These are moral tales with uncertain answers. One might read them as anecdotal for the Iranian-American experience, but rendered in Vossoughi’s epigrammatic prose they ultimately unfold through the language of the universal. Each lights on a minor encounter—between strangers, neighbors, lovers—and what emerges is the sense that anyone you meet has a story.
—The New York Times Book Review

[This] collection examines human connectedness with short stories that are snapshots of seemingly ordinary moments as they take on a whole new perspective. Vossoughi’s stories are masterfully crafted with a tender honesty that will speak to readers.—Booklist

Featuring 31 literary gems of original, entertaining, thought-provoking, narrative-driven storytelling, Siamak Vossoughi's A Sense of the Whole is an extraordinary and unreservedly recommended addition to personal reading lists, as well as community, college, and university library Contemporary Asian American Literary Fiction collections.—Midwest Book Review

ABOUT THE AUTHOR 

Siamak Vossoughi was born in Tehran, Iran and currently lives in Seattle. His first story collection, Better Than War, received the 2014 Flannery O’Connor Award for Short Fiction. His stories have appeared in Glimmer Train, Kenyon Review, The Missouri Review, and The Rumpus, among other places. 

2021 The Talking Book