Asian Anthology: New Writing Vol. 1 by Ivy NgeowMy rating: 5 of 5 stars
Admittedly, I’m biased, because I’m one of the authors, but I’m proud to have been a small part of this anthology, and my rating is based on all the stories in the anthology. Ivy Ngeow did an excellent job in collecting a diverse set of stories from authors all over the world, but all set in Asia. I gladly submitted “Courier to Seoul,” based heavily on recollections of a trip I made as a real-life courier for the US Department of Defense to Seoul in 1994. Ivy suggested some edits, all of which I accepted, because they all helped improve the telling of the story. I’m sure she worked the same level of editing magic for all the entries.
This collection of stories presents so many different views of Asia and Asian cultures. The stories range from slice of life to comedy to drama to mystery. My favorite was “Night of the Seventh Moon” by Winston Lim. Lim’s story doesn’t explicitly spell out at the end what happened, but gives all the information for the reader to understand what happened, and as realization sank into my brain, I couldn’t help but laugh out loud.
Ivy Ngeow’s story, “The Dog Walker,” also has a nice twist at the end. Okay, so I like twisty endings. Not every story needs a twist ending, especially since the anthology falls primarily under the literary fiction category. All the stories are well written, well edited, and engaging in their own ways.
If you search the web, you might find some excerpts from the stories being read by the authors, if you’re into that sort of thing. Just saying….
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The above is my review as posted on Goodreads. Here’s the YouTube video I was referring to in the review.
Find Asian Anthology: New Writing, Vol. 1 on Amazon.