A Forest of Flowers is a collection of nineteen short stories which explore the absurdity of life for characters whose ambitions, modest as they are, are constantly thwarted by disgruntled spirits - in the form of idle and corrupt officials, adulterous spouses, envious relatives and grasping, untrustworthy entrepreneurs. Through a series of episodes, seemingly parochial and small scale, a nation is shown cracking up under the pressures of maladministration, corporate greed, sloth, ignorance and mercenary self-interest, while its people struggle against government neglect and abuse, racketeering, poverty, disease, superstition and ethnic mistrust.