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• Remarkable range of styles: earthy, surreal, post-modernist
• Experimentation people the world over will appreciate

A group of villagers, led by an eccentric nomad, demands entry to a five-star hotel in New Delhi for a cup of tea. Yudhisthira arrives in heaven to find Draupadi behaving in a most disturbing manner. A young man takes Indira Gandhi for an intimate walk down to the river. In each of these twenty stories, writer Sunil Gangopadhyay conjures up intriguing events around enigmatic characters - many of them the flotsam of big-city and small-town society - and leads them into an unexpected, moving climax.

Written during the fiery period in which the author created his sharpest novels by pitching ordinary people into extraordinary situations, this selection is the finest testament to his incisive and uncompromising fiction.

Poet, novelist, short-story writer, editor, Sunil Gangopadhyay stood astride contemporary Bengali literature like a colossus. He has several literary awards, including the Ananda Puraskar (twice), the Bankim Puraskar and the Sahitya Akademi award, to his credit. He was Vice President of the Sahitya Akademi, and one of the most powerful influences on Bengali and Indian writing.

The founder of the trend setting poetry magazine Krittibas, Gangopadhyay considered poetry his first love.

Born in 1934 in what is now Bangladesh, he was educated, and lived and wrote, in Kolkata.

He passed away on 23 October 2012.

About the Translator

Arunava Sinha is a translator of classic and contemporary Bengali fiction. His translation of Sankar's Chowringhee won the Vodafone - Crossword translation prize for 2007, and was shortlisted for the Independent Best Foreign Fiction prize in the UK for 2009.

He was born and educated in Calcutta, and now lives in New Delhi with his wife and son.

Awards and Honors

• 1972: Ananda Puraskar
• 1989: Ananda Puraskar
• 2002: Sheriff of Kolkata
• 2004: Saraswati Samman
• 2011: The Hindu Literary Prize, shortlist, The Fakir