Loved it! Easy to read and easy to follow with plenty of colorful comic drawings of the preparation process. Definitely one to purchase for my kitchen - I can't wait to try out the 삼계탕 (samgyetang), a ginger chicken soup, this winter!

Also, you can never go wrong with a few alcoholic recipes, if you ask me.

3.5 stars.

Did I know anything about South Sudan? No. That's kind of why I'm reading this, duh. Chosen for my read around the world challenge, There Was A Country was a surprise and delight to find. South Sudan claimed independence from Sudan in 2011, which makes it one of the newest countries in the world.

In editor Nyuol Tong's introduction, he is reluctant to point to the familiar authors who form the "diaspora of former refugees and war survivors" and call them South Sudanese literature, due to the complexity of categorizing African literature within and outside the context of its colonial legacies:

South Sudanese culture, in other words, is a strikingly hard to define thing. To further complicate our brief, all of the stories collected here were written in English. As Ngugi [wa Thiong'o] would phrase it: is this not "the final triumph of a system of domination"?

...That the first anthology of fiction bearing the nation's name is in English, a colonial language, demands an explanation.

The intent, above all, is to allow the South Sudanese stories to reach as many people as possible: "... colonial languages reinforce this [subjugational] unity as a common medium of communication and of national identification, an umbrella under which different ethnicities and cultures can find equal representation ... it seems reasonable to use it to send our own work out into the world."

Here we find war, but also so much more than that.

And now, as always when it comes to short story collections & anthologies, have my entirely useless selection of notes:

ESCAPE BY EDWARD EREMUGO LUKA
"The night weighed heavily on me, for it reminded me that they would come for me one day. When they did, I would be ready for them. They have no faces, but I had a fair idea of who they were."

Leaving your friends and family behind, determined to return one day for them. I wonder.

PORT SUDAN JOURNAL BY VICTOR LUGALA
"Sudanese make friends easily, even with the devil."

Having American money makes you an imperial agent - well, you're not far off, I imagine.

"I never knew why [the Nubian woman] had failed to maintain a husband; this woman knew everything to do with beer and hangovers and taking care of men ..." yeah, dude, I think I know exactly why she "failed" to maintain a husband. That's it, right there.

WHAT DOES THIS ENDING MEAN? DID HE SEND HIS OWN NEPHEW AWAY? WHO WAS JUMA? what

THE BASTARD BY NYUOL LUETH TONG
Combination of medical science and local spiritual custom .

Diviners make things up, "validating what the people who had come to them already believed" not because the spirits don't exist, but because the spirits are stingy with information so as not to spoil the future and their own fun in watching it. I like this.

LEXICOGRAPHICIDE BY TABAN LO LIYONG
????

HOLY WARRIOR BY DAVID L. LUKUDU
"But he was afraid, really afraid. He did not know why he was terrified; was it not his choice to come and die?"

POTATO THIEF BY JOHN ORYEM
Call someone a name long enough and they will become that which you call them, out of a resigned inevitability or, in this case, sheer goddamn spite.

LIGHT OF DAY BY SAMUEL GARANG AKAU
The phrase "stepping on someone's balls, a bit" is a much better way to say "pulling someone's leg".

This is an interesting look at a teenage courtship in Sudan, Yom fencing with cutting words and Mayom trying his damndest to be suave (he fails, but she reluctantly finds him charming regardless). Also? Oblique references to the rhythm method, which I never would have guessed adolescent boys would know anything about.

TALL PALMS BY ARIF GAMAL
Thanks to this poem (and some casual google sleuthing), I now know that according to popular folk knowledge, forcing a snake to drink milk will help rid you of all evils.

On an shallower, aesthetic level, this book is nicely put together, with a cut-out cover and art by Gregory Euclide.

3.5 stars.

This collection plays with and stretches the boundaries of what we think of as "bad". As Joyce Maynard says in her story A Good Girl Goes Bad: "And what is a bad girl, really, but a girl who doesn't always do the things people tell her she's supposed to? Sometimes, it's true, a bad girl may be someone who cheats or steals or hurts people or lies. And sometimes a bad girl is just someone who tells the truth."

Interesting as the journey was, I couldn't help but notice that it was an overwhelmingly white middle-class meander through childhood memories, traumas and ho stories. A more diverse selection of authors would have significantly broadened the concept they were tackling, making Maynard's quote even more poignant.

A solid 3 stars.

"A: Maybe the biggest fiction I want to create is that it all matters. It matters so much. It matters and matters."

It was fun to pick out how the stories all fit together, based on characters or events or even just a throwaway line. Some were better than others; "The Truth And All Its Ugly" is a stand-out for me. It has a realistic look at the life of the average poor person in Appalachia (where you "take your medicine through your nose...") that quickly veers into a surreal, Black Mirror-esque universe where you can replicate loved ones if they've died.

"Owners have always called their cats. And for 4,000 years cats always knew exactly what to do: nothing."

"... he watched as the deep rosy inner flesh began to grow moist with a pearly dew and the tiny nub of her little jewel burgeoned with rising excitement."

This was some eye opener for a thirteen year old, let me tell you.

Seemed appropriate to read this as I finished The Portable Dorothy Parker. Mrs. Parker has said that there are "many books supposedly written by cats, though maybe it isn't only supposedly." Who knows?

4.5 stars.

"A lesson. If you are going to break the law, do it with two thousand people ... and Mozart."

Review to come.

Good characters never say anything mean? But those are my favorite types of characters! Mostly enjoyed this for the writing exercises, because I could have a million of prompts and ideas and never be satisfied.