Into the Widening World: International Coming-of-Age Stories
All the innocence and daring of youth are elegantly captured in this heartfelt anthology of brilliant voices from 22 countries. His sometimes overburdened introduction aside, Loughery has succeeded in selecting 26 finely honed tales from established writers including Nadine Gordimer, Ben Okri, Bharati Mukherjee, Alice Munro and Gabriel Garcia Marquez. Nor do the somewhat lesser-known writers pale, particularly Zoe Wicomb, whose unforgettable narrator in "When the Train Comes," struggles with her obesity amidst the racial inequalities of South Africa. Other stories of exceptional merit include Margareta Ekstrom's "The Nothingness Forest," in which an infant wanders beyond the safe confines of home to find a new world of possibilities. In "On Sunday," Mario Vargas Llosa's lovesick protagonist discovers the extremes to which he will go in order to keep a comrade away from the girl he adores. Though each has earned its place in this volume, perhaps most charming of all is Naguib Mahfouz's "The Conjurer Made Off with the Dish," about how a young boy's distractions lead him on a bigger adventure than the errand he began for his mother.Nearly perfect in pacing, this will serve as a welcome companion to Loughery's earlier anthology, First Sightings: Contemporary Stories of American Youth.Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.