It’s been over two months since my last SEA Reading Challenge book, so I decided to double up my efforts to find one. I made a trip to the Central Library and managed to find a copy of the S.E.A Write Anthology of ASEAN Short Stories & Poems. After all, what’s more representative of South East Asian than an anthology of South East Asian authors? Oddly enough, I found this in the Singapore Collection side of the library. I suspect it’s because this is an ASEAN effort but it was shelved with a few other stories from different countries in the ASEAN, so I shall be checking out that shelf in the future.

Created for the 30th anniversary of the S.E.A. Write awards, this anthology consists of forty-one stories and poems. Instead of going through all of them individually, I’m going to highlight my favourite stories and poems:

• The Plank Way by P.H. Muhammad Abdul Aziz (Brunei): This short story explores the aftermath of Liau Bakar’s decision to cut down his bridge. It’s a pretty powerful exploration of how interconnected we are (especially in a village setting) and as the first story, was a good start to the whole book.
• The Buffalo Myna by Viseth Svengsuka (Laos): Like the title says, this is about a Myna that lives and feeds on a buffalo. It’s short but shows one of the lesser-known impacts of modernisation very effectively.
• The Way of Love by Douangdeuane Bounyavong (Laos): I’m normally not a poetry person, but I like the style of this and how it reads from left to right across the two columns.
• Iguana by Alfred A. Yuson (Philippines): This was a very sad story about a dysfunctional family. The father is hot-tempered but there is a lot of sense in what he says. The mother is a dreamer whose actions threaten the financial stability of the family, but you have to love her sense of optimism. Sadly, everything goes south as the tensions between the two affects their son.
• The Bondage by Ussiri Thammachot (Thailand): Again, another sad story – this time of two friends who turned enemies (sort of) when their masters quarrelled. It’s a tragic look at a system where absolutely loyalty is demanded (and unquestioned) from master to servant.
• The Barter by Vanich Charungkij-anant (Thailand): This is all about an old temple being moved to a new restaurant. It’s a pretty interesting take on how using the past for aesthetic reasons (in this case, a restaurant that’s a renovated old Western building).
• The Chaniang Pot by the Window by Win Lyovarin: I actually started disliking this story because the style it was written did not gell with me, but it won me over by the end. It’s on a man who wakes up to find that an accident has caused him to become completely paralysed, and the overly optimistic nurse that attends to him (not a love story).

These six stories and one poem are my favourites, but I enjoyed most of the anthology. There were only one or two stories where I was decidedly unimpressed, and I think that was due more to the style of translation than the story. For example, one of the stories had many short, jerky sentences that did not flow well in English or leave a good impression of the narrator/protagonist on me. On the whole, though, the stories were interesting and managed to show aspects of that particular country.

If you’re looking for a taste of Southeast Asian authors, I would highly recommend this anthology. It’s got a range of stories and poems from nine countries and would be a good place to start exploring the various stories from those countries.