<b>3.75 rounded up to 4</b>
<B>~List of full contents below~</B> 
<center><i>"Believe in what you believe enough to change yourself."</i> (p.228, from 'Ibrahim Something' by Lee Kok Liang) </center>

Short story collections tend to fall into the trap of leaving a reader feeling somewhat neutral just by the very nature of the genre. Unless the theme of the collection has completely missed the mark, I tend to find the ones I pick up to comprise of a few highs and a lot of fine but forgettable stories. 

This collection, 'Twenty-Two Malaysian Stories', has the added layer of including 13 different writers so as to act as a survey of Malaysian authors writing in English at the period of its publication (the late 1960s). This makes it even more unlikely for every story to be a hit. 

That being said, the editor, Lloyd Fernando, did an excellent job putting this collection together. The authors come from a range of backgrounds (men and women from all over the country, from different lines of work, some have poetry backgrounds, some have a long writing career, some are newer), and have very different points of few, but the wistful melancholy of the Malaysian zeitgeist of the 1960s ties everything together. 

As a survey of Malaysian writers, this collection is supremely successful at introducing talented writers to an audience who otherwise might not know where to begin in searching out Malaysian authors. And even if no one author stood out enough to a reader to make them search out their other work, such a reader would still come away, as I did, with a very clear idea of what Malaysia was like at the time, how culture there was evolving, and within what context that evolution and the anxieties and turmolt that come with it existed. 

I was delighted that the writer I connected with the most, Lee Kok Liang, was given the most space in the collection. From his first story, 'Return to Malaya' I was completely absorbed in his point of view, and the tactile nature of his writing style sucked me in every time. They seem to be rather hard to find here in the west, but I'm determined to get my hands on a copy of one of his novels or short story collections because I want more of that. 

Other standouts for me were 'Everything's Arranged' by Siew Yue Killingley and 'Accident' by Maureen Ten. 

<b>Table of Contents</B>
<b>1.</b> Lee Kok Liang: 'Return to Malaya', 'It's All in a Dream', 'When the Saints Go Marching', 'Just a Girl', 'Birthday', 'The Glittering Game', 'Ibrahim Something' 
 <b>2.</b> Kassim Ahmad: 'A Common Story'
<b>3.</b> Siew Yue Killingley: 'A Question of Dowry', 'Everything's Arranged'
<b>4.</b> Yap Kok Keong: 'A Family Quarrel' 
<b>5.</b>Lim Beng Hap: 'Tricked Again', 'Poonek' 
<b>6.</b>S. Kon: 'Inheritance', 'Mushroom Harvest' (this is the only sci-fi/dystopian story)
<b>7.</b>Shirley Lim: 'Journey'
<b>8.</b> Awang Kedua: 'A New Sensation' 
<b>9.</b>Chua Cheng Lok: 'Down by the Sea' 
<b>10.</b>Goh Poh Seng: 'The Temple Bells' 
<b>11.</b>Mary Frances Chong: 'The Jade Bracelet' 
<b>12.</b>John Machado: 'Passing Through'
<b>13.</b> Maureen Ten: 'Accident'