HEAT: A Southeast Asian Urban Anthology

SEA Urban Anthologies #1

by Khairani Barokka (Editor), Ng Yi-Sheng (Editor), Gabriela Lee (Contributor)

HEAT is part of a threesome of Southeast Asian urban anthologies. The other two are called FLESH and TRASH. We chose to interpret ‘urban’ as a state of mind rather than population count or infrastructural development, so a few of these stories and essays take place in very remote places indeed. But they shake it up, they twist and shout, they wanna show you what it’s all about.

Featuring work by: Gabriela Lee, Zed Adam Idris, Vina Jie-Min Prasad, Rewat Panpipat (translated by Marcel Barang), Nikki Alfar, Joseph Ng, O Thiam Chin, Christine V. Lao, Alexander Marcos Osias, Catalina Rembuyan, Hồn Du Mục, Maf Deparis & Ivery del Campo, Diyana Sastrawati, Peter Zaragoza Mayshle, Lee Ee Leen, Zedeck Siew, Bonnie Etherington and Julie Koh.

Genres: Short Stories, Fantasy, Asia, Anthologies, Fiction, Contemporary, Asian Literature

244 pages, Paperback

First published April 11, 2016

Reviews

[Emmy Hermina Nathasia · Rating 3 out of 5]

My rating 3.5. Only a few short stories that resonates with me.

[Alan · Rating 4 out of 5]

4 stars may be a bit high as this is an uneven collection. However there were some very good stories in it.. (more later)...
.. to be specific, 'Southeast Asia' covers Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam, the Philippines, and Singapore. Haven't read much from that region, can only think of Samarasan's Evening is the Whole Day (Malaysia), or the tales of Vietnamese exiles in America like Thuy's 'The Gangster we are all Looking For', so my daughter's Christmas present was welcome to fill gaps.

This gets off to a roaring start with a tale of a girl who bursts into flames; there's a lot of superstition and other worldly elements throughout the anthology, and the food, the streets, the beaches, the heat (of course) are well evoked throughout. All strata of society are covered from workmen on girders high above Kuala Lumpur to school friends at a chilli eating contest in Singapore. My favourite was not urban (the intro explains that 'urban' is a state of mind) -Rewat Panipat's It Looks Like Rain - but set in rural Thailand, and was beautiful and dreamy (and the only translation in the book):
They each dream of catching twenty or thirty butterfly lizards they'll broil to the right aroma, finely chop and then mix with wild olive leaves. The boiling sun makes them oddly light-headed, their heads swell and shrink, swell and shrink, and thoughts float away

[Zawani · Rating 2 out of 5]

Bukan 'taste' saya barangkali. Ada cerpen yang menarik seperti 'Tinder' dan 'Appliances'. Tema patriarki yang dicuba diangkat oleh Nikki Alfar dalam 'Appliances' amat menjadi bilamana penulis menganalogikan wanita itu sama seperti peralatan dan perkakas rumah yang boleh dijual beli di pasaran; simbolik kepada wanita yang sentiasa dilihat sebagai objek dalam dunia patriarki.

Cerpen-cerpen yang lain agak suam-suam kuku. Mungkin saya mengharapkan lebih banyak mengangkat ekpresi dan nilai di Asia Tenggara (seperti latar tempat, budaya, etc) apabila terpandang 'southeast asian urban' dalam tema kumpulan cerpen-cerpen ini, tetapi ternyata agak kurang.

[Aiza Idris (biblio_mom) · Rating 1 out of 5]

Heat by Various Authors, published by Fixi Novo, a pulp-fiction.

Definitely not my kind of reads. Too much heat that it almost burns my mind 😂 I hate one of the story so much, the rest are well forgotten except for Tinder by Gabriella Lee, Resevoir Park by Catalina Rembuyan and Heartlands by Diyana Mohamad.

💬 Resevoir Park by Catalina Rembuyan sets in Kuching, Sarawak. Most of the scenes happened in the park, which I have been to myself. There is a lot of romance and mystic/mystery/haunted things had happened there which is true (romance part. But i have never seen the others).

P/s : when I was a teen, I used to read pulp magazines. But some of them are a sum of pretty good essays & short stories. I preferred superheroes-kind of stories. (Full review in my blog)

[Marc Faoite · Rating 5 out of 5]

A veritable cornucopia of South East Asian writing, with themes as diverse as the the writers.
My favourite stories, in no particular order, were Appliances by Nikki Alfar, Borcay Islands ... by Maffi Deparis and Ivery del Campo, Heartlands by Diyana Mohamad, and The Procession by Julie Koh, but I enjoyed most of the other stories too. All in all a solid collection.

(Disclaimer - I have had several stories published by this publisher and was involved in editing Trash - a triplet sister in this collection along with Flesh, and Heat.)

[Nyssnisacha · Rating 3 out of 5]

I love the idea behind the book collections. The book stays true to it’s name: HEAT. I absolutely adore some of the short stories than the rest, namely It Looks Like Rain, Heartlands, and A Farewell to an Adopted Nation. They are good, in fact, too good that others pale in comparison. I wish there are more stories that would stick with me after I finished reading them as I had to struggle to remember the storylines a few days after reading it and had to refer to the intro for some hints. Is it worth your money? Yes. Give it a go.

[Ismim Putera · Rating 2 out of 5]

A good effort to compile stories from diverse backgrounds. Unfortunately, like the other two books, this anthology has only a few stories that really caught my attention. Others, regretfully, are simply lacking basic structure of a short stories. No characters, no storylines, no conflicts, no emotions, no ending and no whatever lessons to be learnt from.

[Azrie Idzmeer · Rating 2 out of 5]

I was hoping for an awesome read but I was so disappointed with this anthology. Out of almost 20 stories, only 04 actually had an 'umph'. Good book to those who would like to explore more vocabularies. But definitely not a good one for those looking for a good read.

[Donna · Rating 4 out of 5]

Didn't get to finish this one since it's not easily available outside of S.E.A. but I really enjoyed the pieces that I got to read! The story with the combusting girl was so vivid, I still think about it weeks later. Wish I could've found a copy to bring home!

[Jetamors · Rating 4 out of 5]

My favorite from this one was "The New Teacher" by Alexander Marcos Osias.

[Pearse Anderson · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a great anthology because it's cute and full of a variety of voices. It is, however, not the best writing. Some of the stories kind of float around. They aren't great literary successes here. But it's a fast read and it has some great cultural perspectives I wouldn't normally have seen. So eeeeeh 5/10 or 6/10.