Writing: Fiction
BIO:
Sultana is an American writer of literary fiction with a touch of magical realism and Southern Gothic. She learned to write creatively in English (her second language) at the Jefferson Literary and Debating Society (founded 1825) at the University of Virginia, where Edgar Allan Poe was Secretary pro tempore, and where she is now a lifetime member. Sultana went on to earn a Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing (Fiction) at New York University, where she was a Goldwater Hospital Writing Workshop Fellow and served as the International Fiction Editor of Washington Square Review. At NYU, Sultana attempted to revive the Eucleian Society (founded 1832), where Poe was a guest reciter. While living in New York, Sultana also benefited from the intellectual discourse at Columbia University’s Philolexian Society (founded 1802). Sultana is currently working on a novel.
PUBLICATIONS:
Fiction – Short Stories:
“Damn Lucky Sometimes,” in Parracombe Prize 2022: An Anthology of Short Stories (Parracombe, Devon, UK: Parracombe Community Trust, 2022, p. 194-200) (Editor: Bruce Aiken)
You can purchase the Parracombe Prize 2022 Anthology on Amazon HERE. You can review it on Goodreads HERE.
“Damn Lucky Sometimes” is one of 36 stories (of ~350 entries) that were included in the Parracombe Prize 2022 Anthology. Entries (up to 2,022 words) were judged anonymously by a panel of 12 readers.
“Damn Lucky Sometimes” also was the recipient of a Notable Story Distinction from Gemini Magazine (Onset, Massachussetts) (one of top 20 stories of ~1,000 entries) (Editor: David Bright).
“Damn Lucky Sometimes” (set in Krakow, Poland, in 1999) is an absurdist short story centered upon a religious and medical dilemma. This story blends renegade Catholicism together with the legacy of the Polish Solidarity trade union and the long shadow of the Holocaust in Eastern Europe. Major artistic influences: O. Henry’s short story, “The Gift of the Magi“ (1905); George Bernard Shaw’s play, The Doctor’s Dilemma (1906); and Krzysztof Kieslowski’s Polish drama television miniseries, Dekalog: The Ten Commandments (1989-1990).
“Damn Lucky Sometimes” was Sultana’s first publication in Great Britain.
The Last Dragoman,” Gulf Coast: A Journal of Literature and Fine Arts, 28.1 (Winter/Spring 2016): 27-46
“The Last Dragoman” (First Prize of ~ 300 entries) is the winner of the 2015 Gulf Coast Prize for Fiction (Houston, Texas).
(Selected by Sarah Shun-lien Bynum)
“The Last Dragoman” is a magical realist exploration of the subversive and liberating impact of language. In 1950s multiethnic Transylvania, a family of outsiders hires a small town conformist to impersonate an American gigolo. In their quest to evade Stalinist oppression, the family exercises their own mesmerizing brand of domestic tyranny over the main character and virtually comes to own him. A bitter satire of communism and capitalism alike, “The Last Dragoman” portrays the triumph of imagination over deformity, old age, mental illness, and social conventions.
Major artistic influences: Jorge Luis Borges’ short story, “The Secret Miracle” (1943); Truman Capote’s novella, The Grass Harp (1951); and Erich Maria Remarque’s novel, Shadows in Paradise (1971)
Read “The Last Dragoman” HERE.
“Beggars and Thieves,” Nimrod International Journal of Prose and Poetry, 55.1 (Awards 33)(Fall/Winter 2011): 5-15
“Beggars and Thieves” (First Prize of 474 entries) is the winner of the 2011 Katherine Anne Porter Prize for Fiction (Tulsa, Oklahoma).
(Selected by Amy Bloom)
“Beggars and Thieves” is a coming-of-age tale set over the course of one night in a formerly Jewish neighborhood of Bucharest, the capital of Romania, and told from the chilling, if compassionate, perspective of a little girl gifted with monstrous precocity and black humor, the “daughter of the poet and the moon.” She is the vivacious offspring of a Poet Laureate marginally tolerated by the Communist authorities, and an eccentric, fatalistic, and nocturnal young woman named Luna. They inhabit the second floor of a haunted building coveted by many, and periodically confiscated by various people and events.
Major artistic influences: Edmondo de Amicis’ short story, Blood of Romagna (1886), and Frank Baum’s children’s book, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (1900).
To read “Beggars and Thieves,” with a Kathryn Dunlevie illustration that evokes the spiral staircase in the story, Carceri del Vaticano, order Nimrod Awards 33 HERE.
“Beggars and Thieves” was Sultana’s first publication in the United States.
Sultana Banulescu 