Mother's Beloved: Stories from Laos

#232
Title: Mother's Beloved: Stories from Laos
Author: Outhine Bounyavon (ed. Bounheng Inversin and Daniel Duffy)
Publisher: University of Washington Press
Year: 1999
Country: Laos
171 pages (of which 88 read in English, the rest in Lao)

The author's name also appears transliterated on the Cataloging-in-Publication data as Uthin Bunnyāvong. The University of Washington Press listing is here.

This bilingual collection of short stories by Outhine Bounyavon is the first to be published in English. The stories, as well as Peter Koret's helpful introductory essay, "Contemporary Lao Literature," are presented in bilingual Lao/U.S. English facing pages. Since the essay describes what happens in several of the stories, leave it for after reading the collection.

Outhine's stories are likely to strike the Western reader as slightly alien in structure. Their linguistic style can't really be assessed; the translation, at least, is a little clunky. The stories tend toward moral themes such as the rightness of respect, kindness, and honesty. They are not particularly nuanced. This collection gives the reader a good sense of how s/he might structure a story to tell to a Laotian listener. My favorite, "Father's Friend," is, perhaps, about both compassion and seeing the world differently. Many of the stories, though I don't disagree with their morals, are somewhat soppy; again, this may convey some cultural information.

Having read this collection, I would be interested to read something like Bounsang Khamkeo's I Little Slave: A Prison Memoir from Communist Laos to broaden my unerstanding of the author's, and stories', context.