Summer Lightning (short story collection)

{{Short description|1986 Olive Senior short story collection}}

{{Use dmy dates|date=April 2022}}

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| name = Summer Lightning

| image =Summer_Lightning_(Olive_Senior)_cover.jpg

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| author = Olive Senior

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| publisher = Longman

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| pub_date = 1986

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| awards = Commonwealth Writer's Prize (1987)
Big Jubilee Read (2022)

| isbn = 978-0582786271

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Summer Lightning and other stories is a 1986 collection of short stories by Jamaican writer Olive Senior.{{cite journal |last1=Thieme |first1=John |title='Mixed Worlds': Olive Senior's Summer Lightning |journal=Kunapipi |date=12 July 2019 |volume=16 |issue=2 |url=https://ro.uow.edu.au/kunapipi/vol16/iss2/15/ |access-date=19 April 2022 |issn=0106-5734}}{{cite journal |last1=O'Callaghan |first1=Evelyn |title=Review of Summer Lightning and Other Stories |journal=Journal of West Indian Literature |date=1986 |volume=1 |issue=1 |pages=92–94 |jstor=23019657 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/23019657 |issn=0258-8501}} It won the 1987 Commonwealth Writers' Prize{{cite web |url=http://www.commonwealthfoundation.com/uploads/documents/Regional%20Winners%201987-20071.pdf |title=Commonwealth Writers' Prize Regional Winners 1987–2007 |publisher=Commonwealth Foundation |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071023223729/http://www.commonwealthfoundation.com/uploads/documents/Regional%20Winners%201987-20071.pdf |archive-date=23 October 2007 |url-status=dead|access-date=19 April 2022}} and was selected for the 2022 Big Jubilee Read, a list of 70 titles by Commonwealth writers.{{cite web |title=A literary celebration of Queen Elizabeth II's record-breaking reign |url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/articles/2Ynpj933DJ2YG5nsMS6fn8k/a-literary-celebration-of-queen-elizabeth-iis-record-breaking-reign |website=BBC |access-date=19 April 2022 |date=17 April 2022}}

In A History of Literature in the Caribbean: English- and Dutch-speaking countries the stories are described as "scintillating evocations of life in rural Jamaica".{{cite book |author1=Victor Ramraj |editor1-last=Arnold |editor1-first=Albert James |editor2-last=Rodríguez-Luis |editor2-first=Julio |editor3-last=Dash |editor3-first=J. Michael |title=A History of Literature in the Caribbean: English- and Dutch-speaking countries |date=2001 |publisher=John Benjamins Publishing |isbn=978-90-272-3448-3 |page=217 |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=7uH_4yAahYkC&dq=%22olive+senior%22+%22summer+lightning%22&pg=PA217 |access-date=19 April 2022 |language=en |chapter=Short fiction}} Booker Prize winner Marlon James included it in his "My 10 Favorite Books" in a 2016 New York Times piece, saying "The entire future of Caribbean prose is mapped out in this collection of stories, and I don't know a single Caribbean writer who doesn't reread it often".{{cite news |last1=James |first1=Marlon |author1-link=Marlon James (novelist) |title=My 10 Favorite Books|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/13/t-magazine/my-10-favorite-books-marlon-james.html |access-date=19 April 2022 |work=The New York Times |date=13 May 2016}}

Senior has said of this book: "I believe Summer Lightning to be a true expression of everyday life in that part of the world I describe, i.e., deep rural Jamaica, in terms of behaviours, beliefs, practices narrated and language used."{{cite book |last1=Evans |first1=Lucy |title=Communities in Contemporary Anglophone Caribbean Short Stories |date=2014 |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=978-1-78138-118-2 |page=42 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=mo8LDgAAQBAJ |language=en |chapter=Rural Communities}}