The Loss of All Lost Things

"Literary fiction that grips us and won't let us go is notoriously rare. To offer us complex emotional experience and riveting narrative momentum, and then to leave the reader in contemplation of its sophisticated themes and subtle weave of objective correlatives... that is the stuff of literary greatness, of art that demands to be read in conversation with the canon...Gautier's stories have you by the throat, and they surprise you with their mercy." —Phong Nguyen, contest judge of Elixir Press Fiction Award

Amina Gautier's The Loss of All Lost Things won the Elixir Press 2014 Fiction Award. It is a short story collection that illuminates the beauty that can be found in inconsolable loss. Gautier leads us through terrible reality but leaves us with the promise of hope and redemption.

The stories explore the unpredictable ways in which characters negotiate, experience, and manage various forms of loss. They lose loved ones; they lose security and self-worth; they lose children; they lose their ability to hide and shield their emotions; they lose their reputations and their life savings. Often depicting the awkward moments when characters are torn between decision and outcome, The Loss of All Lost Things focuses on moments of regret and yearning.