SHORT STORIES BY NEW ZEALANDERS TWO

Te Ao Hou, July 1973, Page 54

SHORT STORIES BY NEW ZEALANDERS TWO Selected and with a preface and questions by Phoebe C. Meikle Longman Paul Ltd, $2.25 reviewed by Ani H. N. Bosch This book contains a selection of short stories by ten well-known New Zealand authors, authors who not only have a unique and distinctive style of story telling but also because of their wide and varying backgrounds, introduce a flavour which is altogether human and humane. So where does one begin in reviewing a book like this? The author has taken everything into consideration. A preface, background notes on the authors, on some of the stories and some skilfully directed questions and activities aimed at encouraging the reader to understand more fully the concepts hidden in the stories. The author directs the reader through her choice of stories to doing what all readers must do— Read for enjoyment and read to gain a deeper understanding of the people who live around us and next to us—to foster and learn something which is outside our own experience, and thereby help us to understand ourselves a lot more. One story I will always return to is Amelia Batistich's—‘A place called Sarajevo’, where to summarise the whole story in a sentence or so, I would say … ‘Ketty gave a day and a night out of her life to Mrs Zelich, and only succeeded in heightening Mrs Zelich's loneliness—because loneliness in itself breeds utter despair through which even a ray of sunshine is dissolved.’ As a reader, I thoroughly enjoyed this book and I would recommend it as one which covers our multicultural life here in New Zealand.