Introduction to 100 Indian Stories*

Indian short-form fiction is singular. It is also unique in world literature as it has been created across dozens of languages over the last century and a half, all within the geographical boundaries of a single nation. In 100 Indian Stories, perhaps the most ambitious attempt to showcase Indian short stories within the covers of a single volume, the reader will find one hundred glittering stories chosen from the bulk of the twenty-four languages recognized by the Sahitya Akademi (twenty-two listed in the Eighth Schedule of the Constitution plus English and Rajasthani). The stories early in the list date back to the late nineteenth century and the early years of the twentieth century, when some of the greatest names in Indian literature were beginning to come into their own; from that point onwards, stories from practically all the major phases in Indian literature (up to the present time) are represented as are most of the ‘big’ literatures as I call them (not ‘major’ literatures, as all our national literatures are equal in status).