Cover art Javi by David Hopkins
I am the mask maker and other stories
Shortlisted for Wales Book of the Year 2022
I Am the Mask Maker and other stories brings together eleven of Rhiannon Lewis’s compelling short stories. They transport us to places as varied as plague-ridden Renaissance Venice, a failing antiquarian bookshop in inner-city London, a struggling family farm in 1960’s West Wales, and a soon to be discontinued Heaven where the angels are packing up to leave. Vividly drawn, with wit and subtlety, Lewis’s characters are determined not to be pawns in worlds where the odds are stacked against them; to thrive, they often come up with solutions that are unconventional and unexpected.
The collection includes: The Significance of Swans, shortlisted by the Bristol Prize in 2018, The Last Flight of La Librairie d’Afrique du Nord, shortlisted by the H.G. Wells Short Story Competition in 2020, The Jugs Stay with the Dresser, winner of Frome Festival’s short story competition in 2017, and Piano Solo, winner of the Adult Short Story category in the William Faulkner Literary Contest in 2020.
Released on 30 October, 2021
In 2022, it was shortlisted for the Wales Book of the Year Fiction Prize (English language).
Read Jon Gower’s review here
Praise for I am the mask maker and other stories
‘A gorgeous story [‘Oh, Hanami!’], a literal flowering of prose.’
Jon Gower, Nation Cymru, January 2022
‘Lewis’s story was the next-to-last story that I read, and I knew immediately that it [‘Piano Solo’] was the winner. Lewis brilliantly describes Walter’s emotional performance in such vivid detail that the reader experiences the risks and the exhilaration that accompanies, not only a job well done, but a genius performance.’
Anita Bryan, judge for the short story category of the William Faulkner Literary Contest, 2020
‘Rhiannon Lewis’s ‘The Jugs Stay with the Dresser’ was the stand-out entry for me in this year’s From Festival Short Story Competition. A vivid, poignant story of a young wife in 60’s rural Wales who finds her voice and discovers an unlikely ally along the way. Beautifully written with plenty of sweet to balance the bitter, it will stay with me for a long time.’
Laura Wilkinson, Author and Frome Festival’s Short STory Competition judge, 2017
