I read the entire (four-volume) Buru Quartet about seven or eight years ago and found it a tour de force. It has taken me all these years to return to his works in the form of this collection. These tales, written in the late ‘40s and early 50s, are dramatic, often intense, glimpses of the lives of the underclass as the Dutch are finally thrown out and Indonesia struggles to govern itself. (A useful introduction, by the way, explains how the book was a project of a translation collective and why the individual pieces are called “tales” and not “short stories.”) These tales, although not without humor, relate the misery and hopelessness of the poorest classes. My favorite stories included “Houseboy+Maid" (about a brother and sister, descended from a long line of servants, whose only aim in life is to become Dutch. A scathing critique of colonialism); “Stranded Fish"(friends who fought the Japanese but who have become ignored and bypassed by society—and thus the title); “News from Kebayoran" (the life of a prostitute whose initially promising life goes awry); “No Resolution" (the tale of a woman who served the Japanese during the war and her “revenge”); and “Gambir” (about revenge). Insightful, informative, depressing. ( )