About the Author
Dilip Kumar, whose mother tongue is Gujarati, is a well-known short story writer in Tamil with several awards to his credit. He has published three shortstory collections and a critical work on the late Mauni, a pioneer of Tamil short stories. He has translated poems and short stories from Hindi, Gujarati and English into Tamil. He has also edited Contemporary Tamil Short Fiction (Manas, Eastwest Books) which was later reprinted as A Place to Live (Penguin). He has been invited to speak on contemporary Tamil literature in several universities, both in India and abroad. He lives in Chennai. Subashree Krishnaswamy is an editor, translator and writer. She edited the Indian Review of Books, a monthly magazine devoted to reviews of books, for a number of years. As editor of Manas, EastWest Books, she edited several award-winning titles, both translations from various Indian languages into English and original writings in English. Her book, The Babel Guide to South Indian Fiction in Translation, was published by Babel Books, UK. She edited and translated an anthology of Tamil poetry, Rapids of a Great River (Penguin) along with Lakshmi Holmström and K Srilata. She also collaborated with K Srilata on the book Short Fiction from South India (OUP). She is an adjunct professor at the Asian College of Journalism and lives in Chennai.

Spanning close to a century, this pioneering anthology deftly traces the evolution of the Tamil short story, a genre that the Tamils have subsumed effortlessly to create illuminating glimpses of life. Like all timeless masterpieces, these eighty-eight finely etched stories will both hold you spellbound and jolt you out of your complacency as they traverse through the changing landscapes of different times, highlighting at once the uniqueness and the universality of life. Culled from every available source little-known magazines from the turn of the previous century and out-of-print editions from yesteryears to contemporary literary magazines and innumerable anthologies of both serious and popular short fiction the writings include not only stalwarts such as Pudumaippittan, Mauni, Sundara Ramaswamy and Ashokamitran, to name just a few, but also unsung women writers and path-breaking modern voices. Carefully and sensitively translated, these nuanced, chiselled gems reflect nearly all the aesthetic and political perspectives that make up the Tamil short story. Rooted in realism and fantasy, framed on folklore and myth, steeped in irony and angst, underscored by humour and pathos, there is a story for every reader, a story which will surely leave an indelible imprint on the mind.