A CHOICE Outstanding Academic Title, Modern Short Fiction of Southeast Asia surveys the historical and cultural significance of modern short fiction in nine Southeast Asian nations—Laos, Cambodia, Myanmar/Burma, Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, the Philippines, Thailand, and Vietnam. Written in an accessible style, without jargon, this book will be of great interest to students of modern literature and general readers interested in Southeast Asia as well as scholars of East and South Asia who wish to compare the literary developments of those areas to Southeast Asia. The interdisciplinary approach suggests that literature has made a significant contribution to the social and political history of the region, and the authors address topics of significance to scholars of numerous disciplines including anthropology, cultural studies, history, literature, political science, and sociology.

TERI SHAFFER YAMADA received a master’s degree in Southeast Asian languages and literatures in 1975 and a doctorate in Buddhist Studies from the University of California, Berkeley, in 1985. Currently she is Professor of Asian Studies in the Department of Asian and Asian American Studies at California State University, Long Beach. Her research interests include modernity and Southeast Asian literature. To this end she edited and compiled the short story collection Virtual Lotus: Modern Fiction of Southeast Asia (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2002). She has written numerous articles on modern Southeast Asian literature, modern Cambodian literature, and the Cambodian diaspora.