Enduring Tales

With tender, flowing prose and a sharp eye, Nishanth Injam renders to life rich worlds and layered characters in his acclaimed debut collection, The Best Possible Experience. Writing from specific experiences mainly of middle-class Telugus like himself, Injam evokes universal themes of love, longing, and loss.
As the poet Vemana observes, strength comes not just from the self, but also from place. The enfeebling loss of displacement experienced by Indian migrants in America forms the backdrop in five of the eleven stories in this collection. These migrants must learn to extinguish their former selves to walk in the landscapes of their adopted land. In an interview with the Telugu channel NTV, Injam quotes Ukrainian poet Ilya Kaminsky: ‘What you call immigration, I call suicide.’