Anthologies & Short Stories

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Book SynopsisLife abroad for Indonesian women hired as domestic workers is more than the job. In their spare time, some will plan a better life back home when their work contract ends. Others will venture out to experience the cities (like Singapore, Hong Kong and Taipei) where they now work, even posing as locals and living life to the fullest. And some of these women can write. Recently, a new genre of Indonesian women’s literature has developed, one in which – often in short stories – authors reimagine their experiences as domestic workers in foreign lands. Now, for the first time, a selection of these stories has been collected and translated into English. Collectively, these stories provide an honest description of the complex and multifaceted reasons for working abroad, the maids’ living and working conditions, and their hopes and dreams for a better life. The stories are also a delightful read.

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Book SynopsisLife abroad for Indonesian women hired as domestic workers is more than the job. In their spare time, some will plan a better life back home when their work contract ends. Others will venture out to experience the cities (like Singapore, Hong Kong and Taipei) where they now work, even posing as locals and living life to the fullest. And some of these women can write. Recently, a new genre of Indonesian women’s literature has developed, one in which – often in short stories – authors reimagine their experiences as domestic workers in foreign lands. Now, for the first time, a selection of these stories has been collected and translated into English. Collectively, these stories provide an honest description of the complex and multifaceted reasons for working abroad, the maids’ living and working conditions, and their hopes and dreams for a better life. The stories are also a delightful read.

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Book SynopsisFrom the award-winning writer of the acclaimed play "Harvest", this debut collection of stories will electrify readers with its unusual, radical, and troubling themes. Here are ten tales, some new, some old, and all of them edgy. In biting and satirical critiques of contemporary society, Manjula Padmanabhan displays a remarkable range. We read of a white American widow who plans a designer version of sati, or self-immolation, a pervert and his magic phallus on a double-decker bus, a black American girl with a unique take on Hindu civilization, a juvenile mad scientist who schemes in a proletarian dystopia, electronic simulacra that make high-voltage love, and a mature scientist who confronts infertility in teeming India. For good measure, there's also a coming-of-age story, a marriage proposal, a thwarted murder, and a story about the Government of India's Bureau of Reincarnation.Trade Review"This is easily one of the best collections of short stories I have read in a very long time." (Indian Review of Books) "The best thing about these stories is their momentum, their narrative drive. You keep turning the pages and there is always a pay-off at the end.... It fairly zips along, it flies." (Mukul Kesavan, Outlook India)"

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Book SynopsisIn Eating Women, Telling Tales, acclaimed feminist writer and artist Bulbul Sharma explores the many roles - some perennial, some unexpected - that food can play in women's lives. One of the stories in this rich collection features a young woman who, neglected by her rakish husband, decides to kill him by overfeeding him. Other tales narrate the adventures of a woman who cooks manically; a woman who tries and fails to share her culinary masterpieces with a son newly returned from the United States; and a woman who takes money and knickknacks from her husband's pockets, where she finds the different scents of each woman he has been with. These protagonists, all gloriously flawed, inspire sympathy, laughter, and sometimes awe. By turns poignant and macabre, their stories make up a delicious spread, showcasing Sharma's immense talent for depicting the drama and complexity of women's everyday lives. Devoured by readers the world over after their original publication in 2009, these stories are now available in a handsomely designed reissue.Trade Review"This slim collection of stories is quite like a methodical cook's masala tray, each ingredient and spice in its proper slot. The book is best devoured in bite-sized pieces, to catch and savour the finer flavours. Each story retains its unique flavour while contributing to the main dish and the main dish, need we say, is a veritable feast for the senses." (Hindu)"

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Book SynopsisOn a rainy afternoon in Cherrapunji, the postman arrives with a letter for fourteen-year-old Saphira, and her life will never be the same. Dalinia, meanwhile, seems to have the perfect life: successful husband, cute children, a beautiful home. But her troubled past refuses to disappear, and the emergence of a handsome competitor at the local golf course brings it back in disturbing fashion. Written in a lyrical, yet plainspoken style, this collection of ten short stories tells of love, loss, and longing, set against the brilliantly realized backdrop of contemporary Meghalaya, in India's northeast. Readers of contemporary fiction will find themselves transported-into other lives and other places-but they will recognize the dilemmas, the heartbreaks, and the emotions as those common to all humanity.

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Book SynopsisThe powerful short stories in this collection are set against - and frequently driven by - the picturesque yet often violent backdrop of Assam, a province in India's northeast. In one, a young man attempts to escape the confines of middle-class aspirations, only to be brought up against the futility of rebellion. Another finds a mother sharing her daughter's pain when social inhibitions finally catch up with her. Others consider the bloody effects of violence: one sees a young girl lose her tongue to the horrors of conflict, while another depicts the destruction of carefully managed ethnic harmony. All are shot through with a desire to understand, to attempt to explore if not explain, the violence and brutality that have long plagued the beautiful land of Assam and left it populated with ghosts.

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Book SynopsisIn this collection of short stories, Avinuo Kire tells powerful tales of women overcoming violence and repression. In The Power to Forgive, many of the stories are told against the backdrop of the long drawn-out conflict and militancy of the struggle for Nagaland's independence from India. Yet it is the finely drawn portraits of ordinary people that resonate most in this unusual collection. Culled from folk and tribal traditions of Naga life, Kire's collection takes us into a world where spirits converse with humans and where unsuspecting people are drawn into forces greater than themselves. Among others, we find a man dying quietly of cancer, a mother questioning her choice to give her a child a name she didn't intend, and a survivor reflecting on the ways that a traumatic event has shaped nearly two decades of her life. A fresh voice from a region of India renowned for its writers, Avinuo Kire offers a promising and moving debut.

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