Let's Tell This Story Properly

Starred review from July 27, 2015
Each year, the Commonwealth Short Story Prize shortlists stories from five different Commonwealth regions: Africa, Asia, Canada and Europe, the Caribbean, and the Pacific. This anthology collects the best submissions for the prize from 2012 to 2014. Wakatama Allfrey has included a broad spectrum of stories in this slim volume, including tragic, absurdist, speculative, and historical fiction. Wonderfully written and superbly chosen, these works tell stories that could easily be lost or left untold: a child refugee who does not share a language with his caretaker, an old man whose life choices have left him without heirs, a Chinese official working to help Jews during Kristallnacht. The stories are as varied in their vantage points: tales are told from the point of view of the colonized as well as the colonizer, and one narrative imagines a lost life crushed by insignificance while another is about the betrayal of a prominent barrister. United only by the shared experience of diaspora and the consequences of imperialism, this collection of captivating vignettes focuses on the personal stories that formâand are often forgotten inâthe broad sweep of history.