Prayer at the End: Twenty-Three Stories is the third of a series of three collections. It was preceded by Reasoning and For His Warriors.
A cigarette quenched in the Menai Strait makes a man vow to live a selfish life. The memory of an unborn twin makes a man regret the selfish life he has lived. An elderly shopkeeper befriends the teenagers outside his shop, and a lonely householder sets out to confront the trespassers on his land.
'Where is the Welsh short story going? Wherever Rob Mimpriss takes it.' John O'Donoghue, Laureate, MIND Book of the Year.
'In the most seemingly unremarkable of Rob Mimpriss's pieces there is a skill, and a mystery and elusiveness to that skill, which other short-story writers might envy. This is a masterful collection.' Gee Williams.
'An immaculate collection.' Nigel Jarrett.
'heaving with loss, regret and familial bonds.' Annexe Magazine.
'"Hamilton Park" is a quietly written, contemplative short story, whose powerhouse is in the depth of its moral reflection.' Siân Preece, Filter Judge, Rhys Davies Competition 2011.
'if readers want stories that will provoke a great deal of musing on family dynamics, Mimpriss' collections can be counted upon. The writer tugs at run-of-the-mill scenes and gleans details that morph from ordinary to expressive before the readers' eyes. Bleak as they may be, these are honest fragments of the human condition and Mimpriss' pensive eloquence is to be credited.' Sophie Baggott, New Welsh Review
About the Author: Rob Mimpriss is the author of three short-story collections, Reasoning, For His Warriors and Prayer at the End, and the translator of Going South: The Stories of Richard Hughes Williams. His recent short fiction has been translated into Arabic by Hala Salah Eldin for an anthology of fiction published by Albawtaka, Cairo, and has been short-listed for the Rhys Davies Prize. He has published criticism and reviews of Raymond Carver, Richard Ford, Robert Olmstead and others for New Writing, New Welsh Review and elsewhere. In 2011 he was elected to Membership of the Welsh Academy, in recognition of his contributions to Welsh writing. He lives at http: //www.robmimpriss.com and in Bangor.
