Acclaimed author of The Anthropologists Aysegül Savaş’s acute and tender first collection explores the distances we keep, and those we try to close, in the age of connectivity. A researcher abroad in Rome eagerly awaits a visit from her long distance lover, only to find he is not the same man she remembers. An expat meets a childhood friend on a layover and is dismayed by her unexpected contentment. A newly pregnant woman considers the taboo of sharing the news too soon, but can’t resist when an opportunity comes to patch up a damaged friendship. Long Distance showcases Savas’s devastating talent for the short story. Her shrewd encapsulations of contemporary life often centre on characters displaced more by choice than circumstance, characters both determined to install themselves in new lives and preoccupied with the people they’ve left behind. ‘Don’t be deceived by Savaş’s cool, matter-of-fact tone – beneath it lie layers of wisdom, delicacy and subtlety’ Guardian ‘Singular, delightful… The melancholy of these narrators, though tangible, treads only lightly on the text – an effect achieved through the spareness of Savas’s prose style’ TLS ‘Rome, Marseille, Istanbul, Paris and small-town Russia are the backdrops for these tender stories’ Daily Mail ‘An exceptionally elegant, intelligent, and original writer’ Sigrid Nunez ‘The rigor of Didion and the tenderness of Sebald’ Catherine Lacey ‘One of my favourite writers’ Katie Kitamura