This anthology has thirty-one Odia short stories translated into English. Each story gives a new taste in so far as treatment of the subject matter and style are concerned.

Fakir Mohan Senapati laid the foundation of Odia short stories with the publication of 'Rebati' in 1898, about a hundred and twenty two years ago. Ever since, the genre has evolved much. He wrote about twenty short stories between 1898 and 1916. Critics have accepted this phase as the first phase of Odia story writing. The period between 1910 and 1947 is known as the second phase in the life of Odia short stories. This was the period when realism, progressive thoughts, Gandhian ideals, Marxism, the freedom struggle etc. had their impacts. The story writers were guided by an instinct to reform the society, serve people and help in promotion of nationalistic feelings. After the 1960s, writers started delving deep into the sub-conscious state of mind and analyzing it minutely. Besides, a period of 'quest' or 'search for knowledge' ensued. The writers were more serious about their quest into life, world, death, sorrow and suffering. This was a phase when the conservative mindset was set aside. This apart, many movements like 'Humanism,' 'Socialism,' 'Existentialism,' 'Symbolism' etc. took the writers into their grips. This anthology has thirty-one Odia short stories translated into English. Each story gives a new taste in so far as treatment of the subject matter and style are concerned. We have past masters who have carved a niche for themselves. More than half of our writers have been conferred with either the Odisha Sahitya Akademi award or the Central Sahitya Akademi award or both. We also have new talents who are venturing to touch the sky. The writers who gained prominence during the period from 1960 to 1980 and who's translated stories have been included here are Achyutananda Pati, Santanu Kumar Acharya, Manoj Das, Binapani Mohanty, Ramachandra Behera, Padmaja Paul, Satya Misra, Yashodhara Mishra, Bibhuti Pattanaik, Debraj Lenka, Banaj Devi, Radha Binod Nayak, and Archana Nayak. The writers who shot to prominence during 1980 to 1990 are Dash Benhur, Tarunkanti Mishra, Prativa Ray, Hrusikesh Panda, Paresh Patnaik, Manoj Panda, and Bibhuti Bhusan Pradhan. Similarly, the writers who reigned the world of Odia stories during 1990 are Gourahari Das, Gayatri Saraf, Dipti Ranjan Patnaik, Supriya Panda, and Paramita Satapathy. The emerging talents whose stories have been included in the anthology are Adyasha Das, Kshetrabasi Naik, Manas Panda, Rabinarayan Dash, Sreekanta Kumar Barik, and Ranjan Pradhan.

Contemporary Indian English Literature focuses on the recent history of Indian literature in English since the publication of Salman Rushdie's novel Midnight's Children (1981), a watershed moment for Indian writing in English in the global literary landscape. The chapters in this volume consider a wide range of poets, novelists, short fiction writers and dramatists who have notably contributed to the proliferation of Indian literature in English from the late 20th century to the present. The volume provides an introduction to current developments in Indian English literature and explains general ideas, as well as the specific features and styles of selected writers from this wide spectrum. It addresses students working in this field at university level, and includes thorough reading lists and study questions to encourage students to read, reflect on and write about Indian English literature critically.

‘Winter Queen’ is the story of a prostitute, who dares to state unhesitatingly, ‘Out of all the visitors coming to this Bungalow, someone might be my real father and someone else might be my real brother…….. It might sound unpleasant, but can you tell with certainty that none of them had not slept with me for the night in their subsequent visits?” In the story ‘Anumeya’s Self-Portrait’ Anumeya is an effeminate character, devoid of virility. He couldn’t live with deception and ultimately had to commit suicide. ‘The Eyes’ is a psychological story. Elija’s psychology was devastated. The eyes transplanted on her blind husband Nirod was donated by a jailbird and her rapist. How that strong feeling of hate towards those eyes ultimately brought separation between Elija and her husband has been beautifully narrated in the story. The story of a royal breed bitch Rocky and its high society master in ‘The Path to Freedom’ speaks of an obsession with class difference. Each story is gripping and caters to a different taste. A rickshaw-puller Sania is temporarily swayed away by the beauty of a young girl. In the end he realizes his folly to finally come back to the truth of his life; his wife, in ‘The Colours of a Rainbow’. The reader is left with pure joy of reading a great literature. The surprising end in the story ‘Grandfather’s Beloved’ will definitely blow the reader out of his wits.

The advent of print heralded a significant chapter in the history of colonial modernity in South Asia. This book narrates the story of the emergence of a new literary culture, Utkal sahitya or Odia literature, in the context of similar but conflicting linguistic-territorial cultures of Eastern India. The book is the first cross-cultural study of the emergence of a new literary culture in Eastern India with diverse, yet cognate languages in the years between 1866 and 1919. By researching a large corpus of archival material, it traces the emergence of a new literary culture that marked significant departures from traditional practices and understanding of the “literary,” and that was subsequently called, adhunik sahitya and argues that this was facilitated mainly by the formation of a public sphere in tandem with the rapid growth of educated print-public. While the phenomenon was by no means unique to Odia, the study identifies several local factors that were distinctive about its literary sphere by looking at its imbrication with sister linguistic cultures. It traces how, under political compulsions, a new intellectual class of Odias used agents of modernity such as print, education, new sciences, travel and communication etc. to forge a new aesthetic without completely breaking with the past. It examines the role that the Odia periodical press played, and traces the course it took from the time of its emergence from local political compulsions to the defining and broadening of the scope and limits of the question of the literary. It investigates the shifting and mutating dispositions of the newly emerged Odia print culture and public sphere while highlighting major concerns such as linguistic identity, historiography, literary histories, and canon formation as well as pioneering and consolidating new aesthetic forms. This book will be an important addition to the growing body of scholarship on literary cultures of multilingual India. Rich in archival work, this book will be of interest to students and researchers of literary history, cultural history, cultural studies, literature, literary history, literary and critical theory, and languages of Asia.

Spark of Light is a diverse collection of short stories by women writers from the Indian province of Odisha. Originally written in Odia and dating from the late nineteenth century to the present, these stories offer a multiplicity of voices—some sentimental and melodramatic, others rebellious and bold—and capture the predicament of characters who often live on the margins of society. From a spectrum of viewpoints, writing styles, and motifs, the stories included here provide examples of the great richness of Odishan literary culture. In the often shadowy and grim world depicted in this collection, themes of class, poverty, violence, and family are developed. Together they form a critique of social mores and illuminate the difficult lives of the subaltern in Odisha society. The work of these authors contributes to an ongoing dialogue concerning the challenges, hardships, joys, and successes experienced by women around the world. In these provocative explorations of the short-story form, we discover the voices of these rarely heard women.

Annotation Fakir Mohan Senapati's Six Acres and a Third, originally published in 1901 as Chha Mana Atha, is a wry, powerful novel set in colonial India.