1In the introduction of the twentieth anniversary edition of his first short story collection, Lost in the City (1992), Edward P. Jones recalls that one of his professors at Holy Cross advised him to read James Joyce’s Dubliners. It was a book that “planted a molecular seed of envy in [him]” and made him decide he would do for Washington, D.C. what Joyce had done for Dublin: bring its people to life on page. And just as Joyce remapped Dublin, inviting readers to see its alleys and corners and churchyards as significant spaces, so too, has Jones created new ways for us to see Washington, D.C. Most readers can claim some familiarity with the city: even those who have not visited D.C. recognize its physical and political architectures from the nightly news or from any number of popular fictional depictions, from The West Wing to the more fanciful House of Cards. In Joycean fashion, though, Jones is not interested in depicting D.C. as a city of monuments and motorcades. His short stories are largely unconcerned with—although hardly unaware of—the city’s historical narrative of mostly-white, mostly-male authority and ambition, and, instead, they work together to map the lives of its Black residents. To read Jones is to come to know some of D.C.’s neighborhoods intimately—block by block, house by house, resident by resident.

2Jones is not simply writing against a dominant narrative, though. Like Joyce, he is giving his readers new ways to understand the way a city is defined by those who live there. It is worth noting that, despite its visibility, Washington D.C. is also an inherently indeterminate space in American life: the District has been denied the title and rights of statehood, and so exists in a unique limbo, and a significant number of its residents are transitory—government workers who may be washed out with the tide of a new administration and military personnel who are Washingtonians only until their next post. In his stories, Jones gives us a more fixed D.C. The blocks he visits—and revisits—in his work are comprised of true communities, with all the complexity and richness that this implies. Perhaps it is not surprising that Jones has used the building in which he grew up for the home of one of his characters, and he has explained that the Southern flavor in his work stems from reminiscences of his mother. He “wanted to create the world that looked like what she told [him] about the South” (Interview with Graham), and some of her favorite expressions have indeed made their way into Jones’s fictional world, rendering it all the more realistic.

3While Jones’s work was initially embraced by a limited circle of enthusiastic fans, over the course of his career, it has found a receptive audience and earned a host of critical accolades. Most notably, his 2003 novel, The Known World, was the winner of the Pulitzer Prize, but his short stories are also celebrated: Lost in The City won a PEN/Hemingway award, and All Aunt Hagar’s Children (2006) was a finalist for the same award. We are especially gratified to be dedicating an issue of The Journal of The Short Story in English to Jones now, as Lost in the City has recently passed the thirtieth anniversary of its publication, and All Aunt Hagar’s Children is approaching its twentieth anniversary in 2026. His work strikes us as vital and relevant as ever, and ripe for scholarly consideration.

4The Journal of the Short Story in English is thankful for Amélie Moisy’s proposal to guest-edit a special issue on Jones, bringing together scholars from all over the world to consider Jones’s portrait of Washington, D.C and its residents. We are also deeply appreciative of the inclusion of Jones’s work and his reflections on it in this issue, including three of his uncollected short stories—“Harvest,” “The Farmers Palace” and “Island”—, and Amélie Moisy’s thought-provoking interview with him. We imagine this inclusion of Jones’s voice will be a welcome gift to the journal’s readers.

5Reading Jones’s work and reflecting on the scholarly considerations that are included in this issue, it is hard not to think again of Joyce. In an introduction to the Signet edition of Joyce’s stories, the Irish novelist and memoirist Edna O’Brien mused that, “A good story is like a comet, it comes from nowhere, bewildering the author as much as it will bewilder the reader.” Jones’s works may well bewilder—etymologically “thoroughly lead or go astray”—with their temporal leaps and wealth of tangential references and characters, but the spell they cast on receptive readers makes them realize that the ordinary is not at all ordinary. We hope readers will be stimulated to explore Jones’s world on their own and that more essays on his comets will reach us.