A new col­lec­tion of short sto­ries ti­tled, Fresh Carite is the lat­est catch from San Fer­nan­di­an Willi Chen's lit­er­ary in­spi­ra­tions.

Chen, who works and lives in Mara­bel­la, has con­tributed to the com­mu­ni­ty through print and his in­spir­ing sto­ries which jolts the minds of the peo­ple, bring­ing them back to the days when there was sim­plic­i­ty in the way we lived as he re­counts some re­al-life events of cit­i­zen in T&T.

Ed­i­tor/pub­li­cist Reynold Bas­sant said Fresh Carite con­sists of 20 short sto­ries with an im­pres­sive bal­ance be­tween "themes rang­ing from love, de­ceit, death and be­tray­al, to the hu­mour and in­no­cence of peo­ple caught up in steal­ing poul­try hunt­ing wild meat, and the self- dep­re­cat­ing Chi­nese shop­keep­er, not to men­tion the gift of a Chi­nese don­key. "It's tru­ly a ri­otous as­sem­bly of sto­ries that will make you shed a tear whether you are moved to cry or laugh un­con­trol­lably at the sheer stu­pid­i­ty of char­ac­ters who we eas­i­ly iden­ti­fy with. Make no bones about it. You will like the catch in the Fresh Carite col­lec­tion."

Bas­sant said it took them one year to put the text to­geth­er and they are in the process of de­sign­ing a cov­er for it. Chen said the con­cept for the cov­er was a sim­ple de­sign with two carite fish­es, some nets, and a pirogue.

Bas­sant said it was an­oth­er en­joy­able ex­pe­ri­ence, de­tail­ing the "well-se­quenced sto­ries and how one sto­ry moved from one to the next through themes." Bas­sant said the book should be ready for pub­li­ca­tion by mid-No­vem­ber.

"I think the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion should put this book on the school syl­labus, not as a text or it is manda­to­ry, but as com­par­a­tive lit­er­a­ture. It treats with a va­ri­ety of text," Bas­sant said.

Chen is al­so con­fi­dent that his col­lec­tion is sound in sub­stance and can be in­clud­ed in pub­lic school li­braries as com­par­a­tive lit­er­a­ture.

Bas­sant said, "Chen nev­er dress­es his sto­ries with moral­is­ing. He serves up the menu with flair. In the Enam­el Cup, there is a deep-seat­ed love of a man for a woman, who dies af­ter an un­for­tu­nate ac­ci­dent. There are at least ten sto­ries in which women are fea­tured in re­al­is­tic roles. They are not spine­less be­ings and are por­trayed as as­sertive and each de­fies sub­servience.

"Take the case of the wife who qui­et­ly dis­cov­ers her hus­band's de­ceit and stages a fait ac­com­pli. She con­fronts him with di­vorce doc­u­ments and he signs off on the line. And Chen con­tin­ues to fry more fish in sub­se­quent sto­ries where women are the pro­tag­o­nists...

"We see a boot­leg rum op­er­a­tion be­ing run by a woman, deep in the for­est. Then there is Sophisa, a sen­su­ous hero­ine of the for­est out to kill her fifth male dom­i­na­tor and take his place. All pure sci-fi in its theme; but Chen is sure­ly in sync with his hero­ines. But he doesn't stop here. There are at least two sto­ries —The Stick Fight­er and The Last Pan man—where the women are idyl­lic and stand by their men in tri­umph or death."

Bas­sant be­lieves that the book will al­ways re­main when oth­er forms of so­cial me­dia read­ing lose its nov­el­ty.

Bas­sant said, "We have iPod, iPad and so on, what about I read? With the book you can take it any­where you go. You don’t have to recharge it ei­ther. The book will con­tin­ue to thrive." Chen re­cent­ly launched a book ti­tled, Toulum—A House for Matil­da and was asked to rep­re­sent T&T at the re­cent­ly con­clud­ed Car­ifes­ta as a read­er.