Neighbour

A lighthearted reflection on a young girl’s first experience with romantic feelings — feelings she harbours for her neighbour and her brother’s best friend

Echoes in the Hallway

Taking a long hard look at Roma, I exited the freezing living room, into the cocooning hallway and out onto the driveway, leaving the idyllic mansion behind. Forever.

The Wrong Woman

Centred on human trafficking, this story is about a young, educated Punjabi woman named Manjit who is from a rural family in India’s northern state of Punjab

Jocasta’s Son

In the early years of our marriage, I would often tease Shravan, call him a mama’s boy, and he would laugh and retort with, “that was before our marriage.” Implying he was all mine now.

A Polyamorous Tale

An evocative portrayal of a woman’s journey through a polyamorous marriage, this story unearths the raw complexities of tradition and intimacy

The Horoscope of the Modern

‘The Horoscope of the Modern,’ translated from Muktibodh’s ‘Naye Ki Janamkundali,’ is a poignant reflection on individual and societal growth, compromise, and the struggle for meaningful change in an evolving world.

Circles

His skin burns light amber in the streetlight whilst long tresses ruffle like a shadow, hiding him from the rest of the world. Even though he is distant, he is somewhat always there.

An Imaginary Biography of Rivers

She was a woman of great energy, talent and independence. She was never afraid of any men or husbands. In her mountainous bed, she was a fiercely unpuritanical lover.

In The Mountains

There was always someone reaching out, there was always the new and golden. It would lead her through the labyrinth to its end, to her new beginning

‘Open It’: A Translation of Saadat Hasan Manto’s Short Story, ‘Khol Do’

Saadat Hasan Manto first published this story in 1948 in a collection of Urdu short stories titled Black Margins, Siyah Hashiye

The Train to Varanasi

I was going to Varanasi to attend a conference. I had also planned to meet Zeenat for the first time. I hadn’t told anyone about my intent to see her there. She was, after all, an unmarried girl.

The Fence

The little boy wanted to go to the other side of the fence. It was a barbed wire fence. On the other side of the fence lived his friend.

A Wait For Anger

As his arms snaked around her, Ashlesha’s eyes widened, fear flitting through them. The first time she had been caught with a cigarette had also started with love. She rolled her shoulders and blinked. ’Leave me.’

Space Station Through My Window

As if my wish is fulfilled, I hear the news of a new relative of the Crown and its candid nature. I am sure the factories will never rise and there will be more and more of no-pollution days.

Hope Came In A Small Blue Package

He found that the blue, withered flower was exactly like him. It was a shoot, which was forced into the most unhospitable of environments, enveloped by darkness on all sides.

Fall From Grace

Nina imagined a tiny baby like a Thumbelina, a fairy, or a cherub inside her. How she longed to grow up so that she could have her own living walkie-talkie Guddi!

Cold Flesh: A translation of Saadat Hasan Manto’s Thanda Ghosht by C. Christine Fair

The story is notable for its overt discussions of sexuality outside of marriage and other challenging depictions of the inhumane predations committed during Partition

A professor in Georgetown University's Security Studies Program within the School of Foreign Service

Velvet Was the Night: A noir thriller, set in 1970s Mexico City, captures the turbulent years of the Dirty War

Maite, one of the novel’s two main characters, is a secretary who finds solace in a romantic graphic novel to stop herself from being consumed by loneliness. This changes when Leonora, her friendly neighbor, asks her to watch her cat for a couple of days

The Pain Merchant: The Gollancz Book of South Asian Science Fiction makes the strange seem familiar

This astounding volume, both in prose and verse, showcases 32 powerful voices in the genre from the Indian subcontinent that will delight SF lovers all over

Carcass

Rajesh was charging towards him with his horns. Nath found this extremely unfair, he screamed and then screamed some more.

Bidaai

I hope my virginity has fetched you a good price. “Let her bloom a little more. She will fetch a higher price.” You had hoped.

Kings of Syria

A haunting story of migration by an emerging writer based in Budapest

Cat In The Hat Tin Roof

This short story is the first foray into the genre by the veteran TV and film writer, short film award-winner and lyricist

What Would Celandrina Do?

A short story by the teacher, writer and musician based in Denver, Colorado

Annapurna Sweets

A sweetmeat war follows when a wall is built between a century-old sweetmeat outlet, bisecting it into two separate shops

The Portrait

‘I had discovered a new use for the picture, and the fibber in me knew exactly what to do and how to invent an ancestry, glorious and majestic’

A Death Without Mourning

‘His payback for supporting his family was abandonment’

Two Short Stories by Manohar Shetty

‘Mirrors and a Mannequin’ and ‘Personal Effects’, curated by Palash Krishna Mehrotra

When Scorpions Come to Call

When the golden color of these tongues of flame faded and gradually turned to ash, she began to remove her outer garments, one at a time.

Thievery and Blood

A short story by the author of Birdsongs of Love and Despair: Stories from Varanasi

A Trifling Matter

As the weekly meeting between God and the Architect of the Universe was about to conclude, the Architect shifted a little in his chair and asked, ‘Sir, if I may take a moment more, there’s a trifling matter I would like to discuss.’

The First Date

Sneha held Akash’s hand. She had been in many dangerous situations as a mountaineer but nothing came close remotely to what she was experiencing right now.

The Schoolgirl’s Story

A short story by the author of the Detective Arjun Arora series. His latest novel, The Forest Beneath The Mountains, will be published by Speaking Tiger in January 2021. Curated by Palash Krishna Mehrotra

Slow Time

A short story by the author of three novels — The Assassinations (2017), The Wages of Life (2004) and Time Is a Fire (2002) — who has also edited the anthology 1984, In Memory and Imagination (2016). His new book of short stories is forthcoming from Speaking Tiger in 2021.

Wartime CEO

“Firing anyone is never easy, he muttered to himself. Then he reminded himself of Desh’s words: You are a wartime CEO and there are other lives to save.” A short story by the author of Peasants at a Party and Other Stories

The Goddess Arrives

A short story by the author of Out in the Open (2019), a collection of essays on travel, who writes on travel, film and Alzheimer’s Disease, besides short stories and poetry. Her recent books include an edited volume of essays on travel, Across and Beyond (2020), and the first volume of poems, which is forthcoming

Spool of Pink Thread

She’d return with some Mogra and curry leaves and a spool of pink thread for the rose petals by the kitchen. Until then, she’d hold her breath and count the days until a moving van arrived and halted on the 9th floor. And then she’d wear pink again.

Mothballs of the Mind

The night around her was positively intoxicating now. With a flounce of her skirt and irresistible buoyancy lifting her spirits, she stepped boldly into the circle of light.

Where Rainbows End

She noticed when the boy smiled, that he had the same kind of freckles on his face, like her Auntie Cama, and his round cheeks reminded her of her favourite currant buns. Suddenly, she couldn’t help giggling.

Strange Things That Happened Before My Mother’s Death and other stories

Six pieces of micro fiction by the Mumbai-based author of Three Doors, a collection of poems, curated by Palash Krishna Mehrotra

Their Time is Up

On the way back in, he binned the contents of his pocket — the empty cigarette packet, the Nicorette, the panties. He dusted off his hands and took the stairs, two steps at a time.

Wrong Talk: A Triptych

An outside grew inside me with direction, a precise extension: cut weed smell with mud underneath. Then the next ball cracked me in the forehead.

Long-Distance Relationship

My demons are still trapped in your murky waters and you are still within me. When the winds turn and I hear your siren song again, I will come back. But now, I’m on my way home. Bombay, my love, you are alone.

The Tale of a Half-Widow

All at once, a painful flashback of her caring and most handsome husband flicked over her mind and a rivulet of tears from the sunken eyes ran down her face, streaking the make-up.

Carry It All

Aisha looked at herself in the bathroom mirror. Tired eyes. Flecks of gray in her hair. She had aged sooner than she was supposed to. She showered with hot water and washed the blood off herself. While in the shower, she rinsed the stained shalwar and bedsheet, clinging the fabrics tightly to her chest.

Dreams

The crematorium of my life is alight. It’s dispelling darkness. The flame is sky high. I’m floating on the flame. I’m sinking. I’m embracing light and fire. The lump of flesh and blood is in ashes. I’m still there. Floating. Flying. Free.

Lonesome

A short story by the author of Peasants at a Party and Other Stories

These, Our Bodies, Possessed by Light: An Excerpt

A story about (un)sanctioned memory, uncommon love, and the claims of familial history

A Murmur of Murder

The heart wants what it wants, a fragment of the song stole through me. A satisfying dirge.

The Slowdown

His cheeks hadn’t felt smooth for some time now. He has been using a branded manual shaving razor blade that had well passed its life span. Still he used it, even though it was becoming tough for the triple bladed product to do its job. It was also getting painful for him. But a bit of rough struggle every morning still felt less of an issue than the other aspects of his life.

Anthem

This had always been my dream: Go and live away from the chaos of home in a far away land with strangers from different countries who would slowly become my friends. Strangers from countries whose names I would learn to pronounce.

The Sorcerer’s Bride

A Sailor’s Journey

Someone once told him that no place belongs to anyone until a loved one is buried in its soil. The belongingness of the sailor is even deeper. The soil itself is his soul; his heart, the tender earth of the island.

Fine Company

A short story by Delhi-based publishing professional

Sunanda, the Security Guard

A short story by the Goa-based columnist and the author of three short stories collections

Oh My God, Oh My God, I’m Your Biggest Fan

A short story by a graduate from the University of East Anglia MA Creative Writing programme, and the editor of Neon Literary Magazine

Dive

A short story by a student of English Literature with Creative Writing at the University of East Anglia. Her work typically explores the themes of mental health, sexuality, and recovery.

The Emissary

The Emissary tells the story of one man’s obsession with this moment, which he uses as a prism to explore his failures — as a husband, as a father, as a friend, as an artist and as a man. Pushing the boundaries of form, The Emissary is an audacious new work by the author of The Coffee Story. It is brought to you as part of World Poetry/Prose Portfolio [WPP], curated by poet Sudeep Sen

Survivors

A short story by the Paris-based poet and novelist who teaches at the university of Paris-Est Créteil as a senior lecturer

The Exception and The Rule: Notes from a Suicide

Digory

A short story by economist and writer Shawn W. Campbell, who was born in Eastern Oregon, and lives in Portland, with a houseplant named Morton

Kulsoom

A deep sigh escaped her as though something was resolved in her mind. Back in the main house, she did things hurriedly. Then she sat down before the tap in the courtyard to wash herself. As she scrubbed her hands and feet, she was thinking. It somehow feels very queer. But what can I do ? I am so desperate, and no one does really care.

Sweet Wood

Tia Magnolia stood on this farm, under a cinnamon tree. Her red sari wavered in the moody winds. She stripped off a clump of sweet wood from the scented bark of the tree. With a secured knot, she pouched the bark inside the sari’s loose trail.

Chants for Taming the Hedgehog Sow

Prose poems by Bucharest-based writer, translator and journalist Doina Ioanid, translated from the Romanian by Florin Bican, as part of World Poetry/Prose Portfolio [WPP], curated by poet Sudeep Sen  

Tammy’s Special Day

Payback

The lure of an old flame is irresistible, with the power to draw blinded night insects towards it and singe it in a seductive instant. It is hard to say if the insect is conscious of its folly and consigns itself to the flame as an act of supreme sacrifice in love or it is too guileless to think.

Excerpt: The Painter of Bridges

An excerpt from The Painter of Bridges, a hybrid siege-exile novel about a landscape painter, Zora Buka, who loses her life’s work in a fire during the siege of Sarajevo, by Priscilla Morris, who teaches Creative Writing in London, as part of World Poetry/Prose Portfolio [WPP], curated by poet Sudeep Sen

The Man Who Was Consumed by His Wife

A short story by the associate professor of writing at Jindal Global University in Sonipat, India, from a new collection, The Tulip Nocturnes

Margarita Moon: A Fabled Cocktail

A short story by a former university lecturer, a multi-genre writer of short fiction and poetry

Tengchi

The story of two women who meet each other during the crucial stage of their pregnancies in the Garo Hills

Scarcity

He always did want to make a movie like Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge, a story about love. And who said there was only one kind of love?

Rain in Summer

Perspectives

A short story by a Delhi-based engineer who works with the Oil and Natural Gas Corporation

As Neem trees fell…the delivery boy came up!

How Zeb, an unemployed youth, became the town’s much sought-after delivery boy!

The Pink Dog

A short story by senior journalist and one of the directors of the Mathrubhumi International Festival of Letters (MBIFL)

The Fabled City

An excerpt from the novel, Chandal Jibon (2009) by Manoranjan Byapari, translated by V. Ramaswamy

The Village Magician

A short story by the Deputy Editor at The Hindu Business Line in Chennai

Mr and Mrs Inn

A short story by the Delhi-based writer-columnist-journalist whose books include Kashmir: The Untold Story; a volume of her collective writings, Views: Yours and Mine; a short-story collection, More Bad Time Tales and Meer: A Novel

Scent of Sousan and Yasaman

An extract from a novel-in-progress by the director of the Asia Pacific Writers and Translators, as part of World Poetry/Prose Portfolio [WPP], curated by Sudeep Sen

Meeting Madhavan

She had been waiting for ten minutes now and was desperately in need of some distraction. That is why she asked the waiter to bring her the menu-card

Leaves

Demonetisation Tales: The Ghost Detective

On the anniversary of demonetisation, a story enmeshed in economics, neoliberalism, global geopolitics and more

Grippin

A Spare Life: An Excerpt

An excerpt from the novel A Spare Life, about conjoined twins, translated from the Macedonian by Christina E. Kramer

Solitary

I tried to put my days in solitary confinement behind me and build a new life, a life of light and laughter, but in dreams I would remember it, and even ten years later, Bridget would still come in to soothe me at night with a cup of hot milk, and rub my back and attempt to make me tranquil and tell me that everything was going to be alright.

Upon the Hour of Return

Mrinalini could see in her mind. The breeze, in the meanwhile, would enliven into the shape of her embrace

Doctor Ruth

Excerpted from The Lovers: A Novel

Sea Fret

Short fiction by Dilys Rose, novelist, short story writer, poet and librettist under World Poetry/Prose Portfolio [WPP], curated by Sudeep Sen

Nicotine

Short fiction by Hisham Bustani, Jordanian award-winning author of four collections of short fiction, translated from the Arabic by Maia Tabet, an Arabic-English literary translator living in Washington DC

A Superior Man

There were many symptoms along the way before he came to be: freed and lifted by ground zero.

The Tryst: An extract

Extract from The Tryst, the new erotic novella by award-winning Trinidadian-born British writer and memoirist, Monique Roffey, under World Poetry/Prose Portfolio, curated by Sudeep Sen

Mynah Hands, Flying Fingers

Kausalya paati’s mynahs were a story. One day, when her fingers started to cooperate, Tyrex hoped to write that story. If Kausalya paati felt that the dosa her daughter-in-law served her for evening tiffin was not hot enough, the mynahs would swing into action

Gariahat Junction

Why did a pay cheque cost so much? Why could they never live and work in the same city?

World Poetry/Prose Portfolio: The Lennan Sidh

For three years the bard has been the wellspring from which she has quenched her thirst. Three years of tramping in cruel weather have broken him. He would run from her if he could but he knows his legs could no longer carry him far enough. This is part of the World Poetry/Prose Portfolio, curated by our contributing editor Sudeep Sen.

World Poetry/Prose Portfolio: The Names They Left Behind

Margaret (A story in twelve frames), from The Names They Left Behind by Clare Azzopardi, is part of a section, World Poetry/Prose Portfolio, curated by Sudeep Sen.

The World’s Oldest

9/11 filled our lives with unimaginable stories in the New Year as well. The year had barely settled in when Gujarat erupted into an orgy of violence. It was as if the earth had caved in and we could all get a ring-side view of Hell below. Once again all the headlines were coming out of one big hole in the earth.

A tale of family, friendship and greed in Mumbai

Murder in Mahim, Jerry Pinto’s new novel, a murder mystery set in Mumbai, is a story of family and friendship. It's a compelling and poignant exploration of loneliness, greed and unlikely solidarities in the great metropolis. An excerpt from the novel, published by Speaking Tiger

World Poetry/Prose Portfolio: The Camphorwood Binder

Part of our new series, World Poetry/Prose Portfolio, curated by Sudeep Sen, these micro-fictions are compiled from The Camphorwood Binder by Renata Jambrešić Kirin, translated from the Croatian into English by Boris Gregorić and supervised by Miroslav Kirin, Andrew Norris & Silvana Carotenuto

The Man Without Answers: Excerpts from a Ghost Novel

Glimpses from an unseen (unpublished) tome, which still, at last browsing, remains very dear to its author

The Enigmatic Case of a Metaphysical Love Story

‘I feel connected to the universe in a way I cannot explain more clearly than this: I am strung with the cosmos; I am like a sea-creature in an endless ocean’

Fever Pitch

Heather, Desire, Longing, Want, Question, Fever Pitch

Kalkatta: An Extract

Jami, the Gigolo King of Kalkatta, was smuggled into India from Bangladesh and given refuge by his uncle, a leader of the ruling Communist Party. He grows up in Zakaria Street, dreaming of becoming a pukka Kalkatta-wallah. Kalkatta soon opens its doors, drawing Jami into the world of the rich and the famous. Made to oscillate between his refugee family, the neighbourhood gang, his massage-parlour clients, he succeeds in becoming a true Kalkatta-wallah, but a stranger to himself. Until his love for Pablo threatens to destroy everything

Injury

Abused, indignant, the boy came out of the station and informed his friends at the Adivasi Boys’ Hostel of the extortion he had faced at the hands of that TTE. Now, if Santhal boys were on that TTE’s radar for being the most vulnerable ticketless travellers, that TTE too was on the hitlist of the Santhal boys for having robbed them at every given opportunity.

Maryam of Basoda

The lovable eccentricities and unique religiosity make Maryam, in Asad Mohammad Khan’s Basode ki Maryam, one of the most lovable characters ever created in Urdu

Finger

A Kashmiri Pandit in Ghana hosts an old friend. Gushtaba brings back memories of home, opening old wounds.

A Brief History of Seven Killings: An Extract

Jamaica, 1976: Seven men storm Bob Marley’s house with machine guns blazing. The reggae superstar survives, but leaves Jamaica the following day, not to return for two years. Inspired by this near-mythic event, A Brief History of Seven Killings is an imagined oral biography, told, among others, by ghosts, witnesses and killers.

The Year of The Runaways: An Extract

The Year of the Runaways is the story of three young men and a woman from different backgrounds who come together in a journey from India to England, where they hope to begin something new. As the four negotiate their dreams, desires and shocking realities, their histories continue to pull at them even as the seasons pass.

Satin Island: An Extract

Tom McCarthy’s fourth novel, Satin Island, is an impassioned novel for our disjointed times. Narrated by U, a talented figure currently pimping his skills to an elite consultancy in London, Satin Island meanders through his procrastinating days and endless buffer-zones of information and images with which the world bombards him every day.

A Spool of Blue Thread: An Extract

A Spool of Blue Thread, Anne Tyler’s 20th novel, is a poignant family saga. It’s a portrait of the Whitshank family across several generations.

The Fishermen: An Extract

The Fishermen, rooted in the best of African storytelling, is set in a small town in western Nigeria and tells the story of four young brothers

A Little Life: An Extract

A dark and haunting examination of the tyranny of experience and memory, A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara is a heartbreaking novel of brotherly love and the limits of human endurance

A Secret Life

I had renounced all worldly enticements and was on my way to my hermitage to spend time in seclusion

The Sins of a Writer-Son

The rain hasn’t eased at all; Baba is clutching his umbrella in his right hand, drenched all over again

Ameen in Heaven

What is the purpose of mind in heaven? He murmured and murmured the question. The murmurs grew louder

The Self and the Other

He was naked, covered in ash with matted locks of grey hair and beard. His eyes were unusually bright — they were sparkling due to the effects of marijuana

Portrait of Another Woman

It was the portrait of a woman in a forest, looking over her shoulders, contempt in her hazel eyes. The forest didn’t look tropical; the leaves ablaze with Western autumn.

36 Feet Towards Revolution

A short story by Wild Animals Prohibited, the collection that brings together 25 stories that record the dark history of violence and degeneration in Bengal of the ’70s and ’80s. The mirror that Misra holds up to society breaks every canon of rectitude with unfailing precision.

Beautiful, Strange, Hurt Lily

The ride to her new home passed in silence. When we arrived at the condominium complex, she could barely stand and tripped over the first set of concrete stairs

Jerusalem

With everyone she met she was new person, inventing stories and names and countries and lineages all her own and all false