In China Now
$2.50 By MORROW
THIS collection of stories of China under the stress of Japanese invasion possesses a double quality of appeal. With fifteen years of experience as a teacher and social worker, the author knows her China and is able to impart to her sketches those touches of realism which the casual foreign visitor could scarcely hope to achieve. At the same time Miss Galbraith possesses authentic talent as a storyteller. As is usual in a collection of this kind, some of the stories are better than others. But in the best of the sketches there are striking turns in the conclusions, sometimes tragic, sometimes ironical, sometimes heroic, which distinguish the writing of an artist from that of the plodding reporter. Such figures as Father Gonzales, the Spanish priest whose moral courage rises above his physical timidity; the Chinese peasant woman who deliberately suffers outrage at the hands of a Japanese officer in order to save the family farm, and then sees it burned by guerrillas; the girl student whose impulse to leave Japanese-occupied Peking and proceed to free China is turned into what seems to be a cowardly flight by circumstances beyond her control, are creations of genuine imagination. w. H. C.
