International Feminist Fiction by Penelope, Julia (editor); Valentine, Sarah (editor) - 1993

Santa Cruz - Freedom, Ca.: Crossing Press, Incorporated, The. As New 1993. Softcover. Marfree, acidfree F/Fine 1stEd; no names, not marked-in, underscored, clearance or discard. Mails from NYC usually within 12 hours.##; 333 pages; From Publishers Weekly As the title suggests, these 23 stories and one novella (all written in English or ably translated) offer glimpses into women's lives throughout the world--Asia and New Zealand, both Americas, the Mideast and the British Isles. Alternately realistic, poetic and fantastical, the fictions also travel from childhood to old age, from self-examination to social turmoil, from love (heterosexual and lesbian) to betrayal. A woman breaks out of an Orwellian dystopia with questionable success (The Awakening by Pearlie McNeil); a young immigrant poignantly reveals her loneliness as she reconstructs a cake her mother made (Burn Sugar by Marlene Philip); a wife quakes as she awaits her husband's reaction to the birth of another daughter (Amina by Shirley Saad). The most masterful tale, the novella The Threshing Floor by Barbara Burford, traces a lesbian black sculptor's recovery of hope after her white lover's death. These narratives are uneven in quality, and they will elicit a wide range of responses: for instance, the justice wreaked in Broken Threads, by Maria-Antonia Oliver, may provoke winces as well as cheers. As Miner's introduction indicates, however, the gathering together of these 24 distinctive voices is an alltoo-unusual event. Copyright 1992 Reed. From Kirkus Reviews Fine writers with distinctive voices share space with amateurish work: 24 selections, most published first by women's presses. Among the highlights: Marlene Nourbese Philip mixes Caribbean and Canadian English along with a cake; Ch'i Chan suggestively uses hairstyles to illustrate a Chinese girl's observations of her mother and her father's concubine; Valentina Siderenko explores a Russian girl's images of womanhood; Sylvia A. Watanabe's Japanese- American learns traditional Hawaiian death rites; Becky Birtha's aging lesbian feels the presence of her dead lover and reviews memories, including a funny scene involving a Black church on Easter Sunday and a Stetson hat. One story of feminist revenge- -Bertalicia Peralta's Panamanian protagonist kills her husband- -works effectively; another author's mediocre effort shows a rape survivor castrating her attackers. Other pieces, though occasionally problematic, are very interesting: Ngahuia Te Awekotuku's account (which could have used a glossary) of a Maori girl's lesbian initiation; Marilou Awiakta's almost-essay about Cherokee women in war and peace; Andr‚e Chedid's Arab mother of nine welcomes a holy man until he asks Allah to grant her seven more children; Barbara Rea's Australian housewife is radicalized through reading; Fiona Barr's Belfast mother, Kono Taeko's Japanese war widow, and Deena Nelson's Canadian grandmother are memorable. The worst selections aren't helped by non-interventionist editors who let even malapropisms stand. Unaccountably, in an anthology most valuable for its diversity, Black Africa is ignored while over 100 pages are devoted to a novella about a woman mourning her lesbian partner's death, rediscovering her creativity and falling in love again. Some gems in a careless collection. -- ©1992, Kirkus Associates, LP. .