UNSAID: An Asian Anthology

by Anitha Devi Pillai (Editor), Saras Manickam (Contributor), Cherrie Sing (writer)

Are we ready to listen to the unspoken words around us?


His wife's voice was unmistakable. She was moaning and sighing, and he could hear his divan creaking. How he wished he had not come home that night. He was a mere mortal. His heart had betrayed him. What can he do? Somewhere else in the world a child watches her father bullied into submission, while another is teased for his queer choices by those he trusts. Will the soft voices of the weak ever be heard? Nothing - not even death - was going to stop her from joining her family during the annual lantern festival celebrations. The dead do walk amongst us, don't they? When the sun sets in the forest, a woman pays the price for ignoring the village elders' beliefs. Is there any truth to these old wives' tales? Fifteen stories, all set in Asia. Fifteen storytellers, who have mastered the art of laying bare the human psyche. Stories of pain, and power, and good fighting the bad. Stories that take you to the mystical dark side. Stories that knot family ties in darkness. This is UNSAID: An Asian Anthology.

217 pages, Paperback

Published October 4, 2022

About the author

Anitha Devi Pillai (Ph.D.) wears many hats. She's an author, academic, translator and poet. She currently teaches writing pedagogy and writing at the National Institute of Education (Nanyang Technological University, Singapore).

Some of her 2020 publications are an English translation of Kamaladevi Aravindan’s historical Tamil novel, titled ‘Sembawang' (Marshall Cavendish International Asia), an anthology of short stories titled 'A View of Stars: Stories of Love' (Marshall Cavendish International Asia) which she co-edited with Felix Cheong and a non-fiction book titled 'The Story of Onam' (Indian Heritage Centre, National Heritage Board, Singapore).

She is currently working on her own collection of short stories and editing an anthology of short stories for young adults. Both books are slated to be released in the latter half of 2021.

Reviews

[Nadirah · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Unsaid" is a compilation of fifteen short stories focused on the myriad experiences across several Asian countries, including Singapore, Malaysia, India, Philippines and many others. The stories are categorized according to their thematic narratives, namely on the reconciliation of our identities agaainst the backdrop of multicultural societies, the relationships and bonds that we form with each other, and the unknowns (whether it's nature or the more spiritual kind). While these stories may not coherently form a whole, Pillai has structured the book in such a way that makes this feel like a fluid reading experience.

As with any anthology, there will always be some stories that resonate with you more than others, and for me those were "The Taste of Pickles", "Broken Filaments", "The Peanut Turtle", "The Broken Window", "Lata", "The Banyan Tree", "One Night in Cao Zhou", "And the Crocodiles Lurk Below", and "The Lantern Maker's Wife" — which is to say I loved the majority of them, considering there are fifteen stories in all! I love the range of the stories within this collection; there are some which are poetic and reflective, and others that are humorous yet enlightening. Most of them deal with how Asian people deal with their family, friends, and community in a way that encompasses our daily experience in life, and it's amazing to see the similarities across the map. These stories tackle subtle variations of racism and biased perspectives & practices, which are sadly still prevalent within most Asian communities, regardless of country.

Ultimately, this is an anthology that will likely resonate with readers who are looking for stories that reflect our lived experiences across various Asian countries, and it's one that gives a varied perspective of the things that go 'unsaid' in a society that's more interested in burying the more ugly aspects of our existence rather than come to terms with how these things affect our community. This is a great addition to the Southeast Asian literature scene, which I've been keen on exploring of late, so I'd recommend this if you're also looking to diversify your TBR!

Thank you to Penguin Books SEA for the review copy in exchange for an honest opinion.

[bookmehnia · Rating 4 out of 5]

{79/2022} 4/5🌟 Fiction (Anthology) | 217 pages

This is an anthology of fifteen stories, interestingly - were all set in Asia contributed by fifteen writers with commendable backgrounds and accolades.

The stories are divided into three parts or perhaps themes - ‘The Others’ which focuses on stature; ‘Knotted Ties’ on human relationships, and ‘The Unknown’ on supernatural matters. The stories are all reflective towards what Asians ‘do’ best - that is by being Asians. Being Asians means being colourful array of colours with pretty hues and tones but a whole conundrum of darkness and obscurity. Mysteriousness, I would say.

Embroidered and intertwined heavily with cultural references to the Asian community, the stories reflect the troubles and drawbacks facing them. Being impoverished and poverty stricken, racism, traditional and mystical spiritual beliefs, relationships, parental control and authority, stigmatasation, urban poverty, lack of education, self-respect, identity conflict, stature conscious- these are more less, some of the troubled but important issues that are faced by the Asian community.

Which is why I think, this anthology is titled “Unsaid”. We claim and observe all these issues are happening in our community, but we “couldn’t” or perhaps “don’t” do anything about it which cause people who are trapped and involved with the issues to leave everything “unsaid”.

I love all the stories but I am particularly enthralled by “Broken Filaments” and would love to know its following. I also couldn’t help but feeling relatable to “When We Are Young”. I am particularly interested in “An Apartment of Good Intentions” as I think it has a very rare concept of ideas. Also, I wish “One Night in Cao Zhou” is a whole book!

Thank you @penguinbookssea for this review copy in exchange of an honest review.

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[Rahdika K · Rating 5 out of 5]

My first book for the year…and I’m glad I picked this one up. This is a collection of 15 short stories by 15 authors from various backgrounds.

It is divided into three sections, The Others, Knotted Ties and and The Unknown. The Others comprises of four, Knotted Ties; five and The Unknown had six short stories. Such a lovely arrangement.

Each short story has a unique and relatable theme. I enjoyed reading all of them. You can take your time to read one short story at a time and devour it. Though it is a short story, some of them has heavy theme in it. I would definitely suggest to take some time in between to savour this book.

I particularly related to When We Are Young by Sara’s Manickam’s story. It dealt with discrimination that still exists in this part of the world. As the new year begins, I hope everyone would be given an equal and fair opportunity.

Another heartwarming story that I adored was The Lantern Maker’s Wife by Clara Mok. It was such a lovely and endearing to read this particular story. I loved it. ❤️

Some of the themes covered in this book would be friendship, racial and caste based discriminations, love, jealously, betrayal, some elements of supernatural, kindness, sibling relationships and many more.

Would definitely recommend this book to everyone. It’s a concise book with a variety of flavours. You are in for a treat!

My ratings: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️✨(4.5)

Thank you Penguin Books SEA for sending me a copy of this book.

[Louis Tong · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great variety of Asian short stories, including YA (When we are young, Broken filaments),
supernatural (the Banyan tree, The Ruined hotel, The Himachal Leopard, The Lantern Maker's wife), historical mystery (One Night in Cao Zhou), women's fiction (Lata) and family drama (An Apartment of Good intentions, a Broken window).
There's lots of wonderful writing, showing the talent of Asian writers.
Thoroughly enjoyable and something for everyone!

[A.K. Kulshreshth · Rating 5 out of 5]

Collections like this one are an ode to the short story genre. We need more work like it. The anthology really shines in its diversity of voices. Though I read it in one go at year-end, this is a collection that can easily be savoured over a long time. I especially liked that one of the stories is translated from Bahasa Indonesia. Though this volume has the freshness of "new writing", each of the writers has substantial credentials.

In the first section, The Others the common theme is of marginalised outsiders: Indians in Malaysia, Chinese in Philippines, a queer boy in Malaysia, a lower caste Indian migrant escaping the oppression of his native village in a far region. Knotted ties deals with relationships. Its protagonists include a cuckolded, diseased man in an Indonesian village, a young boy musing on national differences as his family returns from Malaysia to Singapore, an immigrant who makes his peace after his mother's death in a village in India, a young woman in a superficially modern Indian city learns to stand up for herself, another young woman does her bit for affirmative action in KL... The Unknown veers into supernatural and fantasy territory, without which, I guess, the collection wouldn't have been Asian enough. This section has stories from Bangladesh, Philippines, China, India, Malaysia, and Singapore.

I am not sure this collection should have been labelled "An Asian Anthology". I agree with the editor that these stories "belonged together" and "they captured some of the greyest areas" of our hearts and souls. The thing is, while all the stories are from Asia, not all of Asia is here. To be fair, it would be hard to do justice to all of Asia. And calling this a collection of South East and South Asian stories would be too clumsy (and there is a story from China). Perhaps that is something to think about when the next volume comes out... and I hope there will be a next volume.

Disclosure: I am in the same writing group with one of the story authors. My review remains completely objective.

[Anna Tan · Rating 4 out of 5]

UNSAID: An Asian Anthology started off strong, but ended up a little meh towards the end. It was a really weird feeling of going "ooh I really like the stories in this anthology" to "ummmm like that only ah?", especially since the sequence of stories moved from sad, dark real-to-life stories I tend to get bored by to supernatural, legend type stories that I tend to like so I kind of expected it to be the inverse.

The first four stories in The Others category deal with dark matters - the constant othering and prejudices many Asians face, even within their own cities. Nothing is more relatable than Saras Manickam's "When We Are Young"; which non-Malay Malaysian hasn't faced this very scenario? How often do we have to talk about meritocracy and quotas for nothing to change? Cherrie Sing's "The Taste of Pickles" also elicited nods: yes, these things happen, what can you do about it? "Broken Filaments" by Paul GnanaSelvam presents a very odd premise - yet I can imagine it happening in small-town Malaysia in the 80s; we all know weird old teachers like that with strange ideas and the inability to accept a no. I resonated with the home-away-from-home in "Diwali Lights" by Adwiti Subba Haffner; that feeling of in-betweenness where you long for what was even though you know that the here and now are your true home.

Knotted Ties explores relationships, both familial and within the local community. Of the five stories here, the middle three (The Peanut Turtle, The Broken Window, Lata) stood out to me. These are the kinds of stories that I, personally, would like to read more of: that dissonance between your own and your adopted cultures, of having to match what you know with what you were supposed to have known. "The Peanut Turtle" (Dennis Yeo) was the most intriguing, probably because of the format. It switched between the protagonist's first trip to Malaysia as a child (told in the present tense), and something like a memoir (diary?) of the events written in the future that explained the historical & cultural background plus many of the gaps in the child's knowledge - which really made for a strange reading. Oddly enough, it works. Whilst I did like "The Apartment of Good Intentions" (Adriana Nordin Manan), it ended rather abruptly and felt a little incomplete to me.

That dissatisfaction of "huh, something feels missing here" carried over into the last section, The Unknown, which felt like the weakest set of the whole anthology. Maybe I was bored by the time I got to it, I don't know, or maybe I've read too many similar ghost/supernatural stories that nothing really stood out or got me excited in this batch of stories. Or maybe there was just too much revenge going on, whether in life or from beyond the grave. That said, they're interesting enough, and still worth a read.

As a whole, Unsaid is a solid collection of short stories set in Asia. (I hesitate to say "by Asians" because there are a couple of names that don't seem to be specifically Asian based on their bios.)

Note: I received a review of this book from PRH SEA. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.

[Gaurav Bajpai · Rating 5 out of 5]

It is a fantastic collection of Asian authors. A must-read.

[Kat Elle]

(tier: liked it so much)

"Fifteen stories, all set in Asia. Fifteen storytellers, who have mastered the art of laying bare the human psyche. Stories of pain, and power, and good fighting the bad. Stories that take you to the mystical dark side. Stories that knot family ties in darkness."

one of the best things i've discovered last year was my love for anthologies. so when Penguin Random House SEA sent me a copy of this book, I WAS THRILLED. i mean... 15 stories by 15 southeast asian authors?????? what more could i ask for???

and it was so much better than i've expected.

this short story collection consists of different narratives across the southeast asian community. it tells various themes from friendship and familial ties to gender identity and stereotypes to supernatural beliefs and superstitions to race differentiation and economic status. it evokes emotions such as grief, longing, pain, disappointment, betrayal, fear, and so much more. it gives us a glimpse of one's cultural nuances and unspoken struggles from sea perspectives. i was glad i was given a chance to read these multifaceted stories written by fifteen amazing asian writers.

with that, a huge thanks to Penguin Random House SEA for kindly sending me this copy!

[Maggi · Rating 2 out of 5]

I was really disappointed by the lack of perspectives from other Asian nations. Stories felt disjointed, and lacked depth.