KEY POINTS:
BEEN THERE, READ THAT! Stories for the Armchair Traveller
Edited by Jean Anderson
Victoria University Press, $30
Don't be fooled by the title of this book. It is not a collection of travel tales, but translated works of authors from 20 countries.
Austrian writer Andre Grill has a wonderful tale about her grandmother who the older she got the younger she thought she was.
Johny Gavlovski of Venezuela is represented by a heartfelt story of a young boy's treatment by a succession of "fathers" who live with his mother.
There is the twee tale of the French village which keeps relocating, the satire of German families being overwhelmed by recyclable rubbish, cock-fighting in Tahiti, the Swedish carpenter who reluctantly takes over the family farm.
All of the stories make good on Anderson's comment in her foreword that to read a writer in translation is to travel to a different place.
