Freedom: Stories Celebrating the Universal Declaration of Human Rights

Ranging from the surreal to the subtle, this sweeping anthology illustrates the tenets of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and features a contributor list that reads like a who's who of leading writers from across the globe, including David Mitchell, Joyce Carol Oates, Paulo Coelho, Mahmoud Saeed, Yann Martel, and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. In Kate Atkinson's "The War on Women," Britain passes a law requiring women to stay home and wear the burqa. A group of neighbors in a housing project takes justice into their own hands in Walter Mosley's "The Trial." The protagonist of James Meek's "The Kind of Neighbor You Used to Have" discovers how little risk his neighbors are willing to take to avert injustice. Banana Yoshimoto's "A Special Boy" delves into the effects of a mother's abandonment of her son. The narrator of Ali Smith's "The Go-Between" occupies the space between oppression and freedom—literally—as he attempts to move from Morocco into Spain. Vibrant and often chilling, these stories paint a rousing picture of the continuing battle to ensure basic human dignity. (Jan.)