Colors of Heaven: Short Stories from the Pacific Rim

Don Precosky teaches English at the College of New Caledonia and is the
co-editor of Four Realities: Poets of Northern B.C.

This is a rich and exciting collection of stories by 19 writers from 12
countries, ably selected by Trevor Carolan. The Pacific Rim—Eastern
Asia and the South Pacific—is too vast and varied to be captured in
any one book. At best, this collection provides snapshots that capture
the diversity of the region, its peoples, and their concerns. Yoskiko
Shibaki’s “Snow Flurry” is about urban rootlessness in Japan. O
Chong-Hui’s “Chinatown” uncovers grinding poverty and the
oppression of women in Korea. “13 Happiness Street,” by Bei Dao, an
exiled Chinese dissident, reveals real life under the Communist regime
to be an absurd Kafkaesque nightmare. (A significant number of the
writers represented here are dissidents or exiles from oppressive
regimes.) “In the Mirror,” by Thailand’s Kon Krailat, presents the
horrific life of a male schoolteacher forced to earn his living in a sex
show.

To categorize literature as “Pacific Rim” is probably of no
literary usefulness. Other than being good and having been written in
countries that touch on the world’s largest ocean, these stories have
little in common. “Pacific Rim” is a term invented by economists to
denote a group of countries ripe for economic exploitation. I hope we
don’t intend to do the same to the writers: submerge their national
identities under economic expedience. That said, I wouldn’t want this
collection undone—it is marvelous. All of the stories are about
something deeply felt. All are about subjects of great importance to
their particular societies. There is very little in the way of
transcendent unifying themes or ideologies. The chief trait of the book
is the stories’ variety and dissimilarity. They underline the
importance of nation and nationality, and the need of individual peoples
to face and work out their own problems.