Stories They Told: A Banquet of Literature

‘A great short story reveals a moment of truth,’ says Ruskin Bond in his Foreword to AJ Thomas’s amazing feat in compiling memorable tales from the 19th, 20th and 21st centuries from the diverse languages of India. Surely a lion-hearted researcher, editor and anthologist, Thomas has trodden a territory that no one has ever ventured into because it would seem too daunting and fraught with the politics of language. With magnificent acumen and poise, Thomas organizes the 100 stories by the birth dates of the authors and bypasses any questions that may arise about periodization, nomenclature, or the proportionate pages bestowed on one language over another. His only criterion is the excellence of the short fiction, a frisson that lights up the firmament with a glow of discovery as one reads the final sentence of a tale.