It's unlikely that even the most generous evaluation of Lao literature would rank it among the world's great cultural legacies. Part of the problem has been a lack of visibility: Buddhist sutras, poems and epics -- the traditional mainstay of Laotian writing -- were composed on perishable palm-leaf books, while other works existed only in fragile oral traditions such as song and recitation. Preservation and transmission of the few written works that have survived has been impeded by decades of war and the lack of funds and modern printing presses.
Consequently, very little Lao literature, beside folk and children's anthologies, exists in translation. "Mother's Beloved: Stories from Laos" by Outhine Bounyavong, the first full-length collection of contemporary short stories to be published in English, thus offers a rare perspective on the country.
Unlike many other Southeast Asian writers who live in exile, Outhine lives and works in Laos, practicing a degree of self-censorship to get published. Despite liberalization of its economy in the late 1980s, politically Laos remains a Communist Party state, and publishing has remained almost completely under government control since the 1950s. There is a touch of nostalgia, however, in some of Outhine's narratives for the certainties of the earlier communist era.