Like any proper anthology of short fiction, Asian or not, this one is a celebration of, indeed a valentine to, the short story. One way we know we have read a great short story, as you will here again and again, is the recurrent, delicious mistake of feeling like we have actually just read an entire novel. Short stories are dense and compact; novels are, by definition, loose and baggy. To read a short story in one sitting, as we are so tempted to do here, is to have the artistic equivalent of expanding a compressed computer file: so much life comes pouring out, jack-in-the-box or clown-car style, of these meticulously crafted sentences and scenes. These brave, talented, unforgetable writers from the Philippines, Afghanistan, India, Japan and Singapore have compressed so much life, so much hard-fought wisdom, battered grace, and sweet delight, into these seventeen moving stories in alluring voices. Publisher: KitaabAuthor Biography: Professor Darryl Whetter is the author of four books of fiction and two poetry collections, including the 2020 climate-crisis novel Our Sands. After working as a writing professor at various universities in his native Canada, he was the inaugural director of the first full Creative Writing master’s program in Singapore. Language: EnglishCountry of Origin: SingaporePage count: 313Binding: PaperbackPublication Date: Jan 2023
