With a literary history spanning centuries, the languages of Odisha have found myriad expression in prose, poetry, mythology, history, and politics. The Big Book of Odia Literature goes where very few have dared—into a history of language, literature and song that can be traced back all the way to the tenth century. In this careful curation, The Big Book curates essays, stories, poems, and plays that have defined the culture of a state and a people. A first of its kind, the volume is for lovers of linguistic history and literary traditions.

Of the twenty short stories Fakir Mohan Senapati wrote, only eight are represented in this selection, but they bring out the essence of his craft and exemplify his acute sense of the oral tradition of tale-telling. Leelavati Mohapatra and K.K Mohapatra have translated extensively from Oriya. Paul St. Pierre is professor of linguistics and translations at Montreal University.

This volume forms part of the Critical Discourses in South Asia series, which deals with schools, movements and discursive practices in major South Asian languages. It offers crucial insights into the making of Odia literature and its critical tradition across a century. The book brings together English translation of major writings of influential figures dealing with literary criticism and theory, aesthetic and performative traditions, and re-interpretations of primary concepts and categories in Odia. It presents twenty-five key texts in literary and cultural studies from late-nineteenth century to early-twenty-first century, translated by experts for the first time into English. These seminal essays explore complex interconnections between socio-historical events in the colonial and post-Independence period in Odisha and the language movement. They discuss themes such as the evolving idea of literature and criteria of critical evaluation; revision and expansion of the literary canon; the transition from orality to print; emergence of new reading practices resulting in shifts in aesthetic sensibility; dialectics of tradition and modernity; and the formation, consolidation and political consequences of a language-based identity. Comprehensive and authoritative, this volume offers an overview of the history of critical thought in Odia literature in South Asia. It will be essential for scholars and researchers of Odia language and literature, literary criticism, literary theory, comparative literature, Indian literature, cultural studies, art and aesthetics, performance studies, history, sociology, regional studies and South Asian studies. It will also interest the Odia-speaking diaspora and those working on the intellectual history of Odisha and Eastern India and conservation of language and culture.

It's a collection of ten short stories. The stories are different in their plot, characters, etc but yet they share common theme of happiness. The characters of each story make a bid only to attain happiness in their life. These stories unanimously underline the Indian belief that happiness is not a function of wealth. Rather, it comes from intuition. The most important aspect of this collection is they aren’t mere fictions, rather the stories are inspired by events of real life characters.