book: Sudden Fiction International: Sixty Short-Short Stories, by Robert Shapard,James Thomas

Another good collection of stories:

"this anthology presents an enticing smorgasbord of 60 short-short stories (none longer than five pages) from every continent, including work from such rarely represented countries as Botswana, Guatemala, Cyprus, and Pakistan. Although a quarter of the stories are from the United States, where the short-short form now flourishes, the catalog of international writers is impressive: Cortazar, Kawabata, Boll, Colette, Dinesen, Gordimer, Garcia Marquez, Babal, Calvino, and splendid lesser-knowns such as Krishnan Varma. Not all these exotic delights will suit every palate--the stories range from realism to absurdist fantasy, poetic lyric to political allegory--but one is always left hungry enough to try another. The collection also includes commentaries by the writers and translators and is perhaps even better than the earlier book."