Jonathan Tel

Jonathan Tel is writing a book of linked stories set in China. These stories have won the Sunday Times EFG Short Story Prize 2016, the Commonwealth Short Story Prize 2015, and the VS. Pritchett Prize from the Royal Society of Literature 2015. His story 'Year of the Panda' was commended in the 2015 ABR Elizabeth Jolley Prize. Apart from China, he has lived in Tokyo, Jerusalem, Berlin, London, New York and San Francisco.

Jolley Prize 2016 (Shortlist): 'The Water Calligrapher's Women' by Jonathan Tel

August 2016, no. 383 • 21 July 2016

She says it was a man, an old man (but all men are old to her), which man, what did he look like, what was he wearing, what did he do ... (read more)

'Year of the Panda', a new story by Jonathan Tel

ABR Fiction • 15 January 2016

She sells her body to save her mother's life. If they made her the star of a reality show, that would be the tagline. The series would end with the mother's funeral; or else with a wedding: the heroine marries a perfect man, and the mother is magically restored to health. She breathes in and out, holding her smile, as she struts along the catwalk which is not really a catwalk - just a zone indicat ... (read more)