RaveNPRPimwana\'s translator, Mui Poopoksakul, does a beautiful job with prose and selection alike, offering stories from the first two decades of Pimwana\'s literary career. As a result, Arid Dreams serves as both an introduction to Pimwana\'s style and preoccupations, and a sped-up way to watch her grow from a gifted story writer to an utter master of the form. This is not to say that Arid Dreams is perfect. Its stories range from exceptional to definitively flawed, but its few misfires serve to illuminate the rest of the collection in fascinating and relevant ways ... Pimwana is profoundly good at compression. She can turn a moment or gesture into the point at which an entire life turns. Unusually, she\'s able to do this as both tragedy and comedy ... Most of the stories in Arid Dreams land in dual emotional territory, nudging the reader to reconsider her laughter in the light of her rage, or her rage in the light of her empathy. Pimwana\'s skill at creating multiplicity makes her mastery clear. Each of her stories poses its own moral challenge, pleasurable and unsettling at once. Taken together, they are a phenomenal puzzle to read.
