Twenty classic short stories from master writers across the country This superb collection contains some of the best Indian short stories written in the last fifty years, both in English and in the regional languages. Some of these stories – ‘We Have Arrived in Amritsar’ by Bhisham Sahni, ‘Companions’ by Raja Rao, ‘The Sky and the Cat’ by U.R. Anantha Murthy, ‘A Devoted Son’ by Anita Desai – have been widely anthologized and are well known. Others, like Premendra Mitra’s ‘The Discovery of Telenapota’, Gangadhar Gadgil’s ‘The Dog that Ran in Circles’, Mowni’s ‘A Loss of Identity’, O.V. Vijayan’s ‘The Wart’ and Devanuru Mahadeva’s ‘Amasa’, are less familiar to readers but are nevertheless classics of the art of the short story. This new and revised edition includes three additional classics: R.K. Narayan’s ‘Another Community’, Avinash Dolas’s ‘The Victim’ and Ismat Chughtai’s ‘The Wedding Shroud’. The Penguin Book of Modern Indian Short Stories is a marvellous and entertaining introduction to the rich diversity of pleasures that the Indian short story–a form that has produced masters in over a dozen languages–can offer.

In recent years American readers have been thrilling to the work of such Indian writers as Salman Rushdie and Vikram Seth. Now this extravagant and wonderfully discerning anthology unfurls the full diversity of Indian literature from the 1850s to the present, presenting today’s brightest talents in the company of their distinguished forbearers and likely heirs. The thirty-eight authors collected by novelist Amit Chaudhuri write not only in English but also in Hindi, Bengali, and Urdu. They include Rabindranath Tagore, arguably the first international literary celebrity, chronicling the wistful relationship between a village postal inspector and a servant girl, and Bibhuti Bhushan Banerjee, represented by an excerpt from his classic novel about an impoverished Bengali childhood, Pather Panchali. Here, too, are selections from Nirad C. Chaudhuri’s Autobiography of an Unknown Indian, R. K. Narayan’s The English Teacher, and Salman Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children alongside a high-spirited nonsense tale, a drily funny account of a pre-Partition Muslim girlhood, and a Bombay policier as gripping as anything by Ed McBain. Never before has so much of the subcontinent’s writing been made available in a single volume.

Best General Book

Fifteen enthralling stories by some of India's finest writers for children . . . stories that take the child into a world of fantasy, sci-fi, adventure, mystery and humour. Beautifully illustrated by several leading Indian children's illustrators. Ages 13 to 16 years.

India has become one of the world's emerging powers, rivaling China in terms of global influence. Yet many people know relatively little about the economic, social, political, and cultural changes unfolding in India today. To what extent are people benefiting from the economic boom? In what ways is education transforming society? And how is India's culture industry responding to technological change? In this "Very Short Introduction", Craig Jeffrey provides a compelling account of the recent history of India, investigating the contradictions that are plaguing modern India and the manner in which people, especially young people, are actively remaking the country in the twenty first century. -- From publisher's description.

Hailed as the world's largest democracy and feted by the Trump administration in events like "Howdy Modi" in Houston, India is fast slipping into autocracy under the bigoted rule of Prime Minister Modi and this blistering critique shows how.

A Buddhist monk takes up arms to resist the Chinese invasion of Tibet - then spends the rest of his life trying to atone for the violence by hand printing the best prayer flags in India. A Jain nun tests her powers of detachment as she watches her best friend ritually starve herself to death. Nine people, nine lives; each one taking a different religious path, each one an unforgettable story. William Dalrymple delves deep into the heart of a nation torn between the relentless onslaught of modernity and the ancient traditions that endure to this day. LONGLISTED FOR THE BBC SAMUEL JOHNSON PRIZE

Not long ago, several naysayers readied to write the epitaph of the short story. The novel, and the odd-novella, indeed appeared to relegate the short story to oblivion. Fortuitously, the short story slipped through with fresh and unexplored angularities to reclaim its rightful place in the corpus of world literature. Today, the short story’s robustness continues to baffle the heretics and delight the believers. In India, particularly, hundreds of authors practise this craft in a multitude of languages, exploring a variety of themes, often in the face of stiff opposition from State-sponsored ideologues. Great Stories From Modern India brings under a single awning some of the most celebrated Indian writers who have excelled in the craft— SH Vatsyayan ‘Agyeya’, Rajinder Singh Bedi, Khushwant Singh, Amrita Pritam, Vaikom Muhammad Basheer, Premendra Mitra, Mulk Raj Anand, Balwant Gargi, Kamleshwar, Krishan Chander, Qurratulain Hyder, Ruskin Bond, and Indira Goswami, among others. While each story presents yet another unfathomable spectrum of human emotions in the writer’s unique voice, this anthology, like an orchestral piece, culminates in the shared quest of the meaning of existence, adversity, survival, annihilation, election, exile, crime, redemption and finally, homecoming.

A New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice Multilayered, subtle, insightful short stories from the inimitable Booker Prize–winning author, with an introduction by Anita Desai Nobody has written so powerfully of the relationship between and within India and the Western middle classes than Ruth Prawer Jhabvala. In this selection of stories, chosen by her surviving family, her ability to tenderly and humorously view the situations faced by three (sometimes interacting) cultures—European, post–Independence Indian, and American—is never more acute. In “A Course of English Studies,” a young woman arrives at Oxford from India and struggles to adapt, not only to the sad, stoic object of her infatuation, but also to a country that seems so resistant to passion and color. In the wrenching “Expiation,” the blind, unconditional love of a cloth shop owner for his wastrel younger brother exposes the tragic beauty and foolishness of human compassion and faith. The wry and triumphant “Pagans” brings us middle–aged sisters Brigitte and Frankie in Los Angeles, who discover a youthful sexuality in the company of the languid and handsome young Indian, Shoki. This collection also includes Jhabvala’s last story, “The Judge’s Will,” which appeared in The New Yorker in 2013 after her death. The profound inner experience of both men and women is at the center of Jhabvala’s writing: she rivals Jane Austen with her impeccable powers of observation. With an introduction by her friend, the writer Anita Desai, At the End of the Century celebrates a writer’s astonishing lifetime gift for language, and leaves us with no doubt of Ruth Prawer Jhabvala’s unique place in modern literature. "The stories—all of them elegantly plotted and unsentimental, with an addictive, told–over–tea quality—are largely character studies of people isolated, often tragically, by custom or self–delusion . . . Vivid, unsparing portraits are leavened with the kind of humanizing moments that evoke a total world within their compression."—Megan O’Grady, The New York Times Book Review

The Puffin Treasury Of Modern Indian Stories Is A Unique Collection Of Stories And Excerpts Written By Master Storytellers. It Represents For The First Time The Richness And Range Of Writing For Children In India During The Twentieth Century. From Ruskin Bond&Rsquo;S Humorous &Lsquo;Snake Trouble&Rsquo; And Vikram Seth&Rsquo;S Animal Fable In Verse &Lsquo;The Elephant And The Tragopan&Rsquo;, To Salman Rushdie&Rsquo;S Fantasy &Lsquo;Haroun And The Sea Of Stories&Rsquo; And Satyajit Ray&Rsquo;S Gripping Tale &Lsquo;The Hungry Septopus&Rsquo;, This Anthology Has A Vibrant Mix Of Styles And Forms. With Spectacular Illustrations By A Host Of The Most Talented Artists Working Today, This Anthology Will Delight Both Children And Adults. Contributors Include: Paro Anand Margaret Bhatty Pankaj Bisht Ruskin Bond Anita Desai Shashi Deshpande Shama Futehally Mala Marwah Arvind Krishan Mehrotra Dhan Gopal Mukerji Meenakshi Mukherjee R.K. Narayan Premchand Sara Rai Shanta Rameshwar Rao Hemangini Ranade Satyajit Ray Salman Rushdie Bhisham Sahni Poile Sengupta Subhadra Sen Gupta Vikram Seth Khushwant Singh Kalpana Swaminathan &Nbsp;