Author: Amit Chaudhuri
Publisher: Picador India
Year: 2003
Language: English
Pages: 184
ISBN/UPC (if available): 0330491318
Description
Amit Chaudhuri’s stories range across the astonishing face of the modern Indian subcontinent. From a divorcee about to enter into an arranged marriage to a teenaged poet who develops a relationship with a lonely widower, from singing teachers to housewives to white-collar businessmen, Chaudhuri deftly explores the juxtaposition of the new and old worlds in his native India. Here are stories as sweet and humane as they are incisive and revealing.
REVIEWS
Brilliant…Here, as with Chekhov or Hemingway, the reader not only accepts but relishes the economy, because he or she has already been won over by other deft and graceful aspects of the author’s style…Against these vivid backgrounds are placed an astonishingly varied galaxy of characters…A civilised, not to mention an immensely enjoyable read.
-Ranjit Bolt, Guardian
Few write as delicately as Chaudhuri, whose characters intertwine their antennae and talk in elliptical low tones, displaying all the while peculiarly Indian humanity.
-Philip Glazebrook, Spectator
Mr Chaudhuri limns the trajectory of an entire life in a handful of pages…The stories in this volume combine the folk-art charm and easygoing improvisations of R K Narayan with the compassion and evocative atmosphere of Chekhov.
- Michiko Kakutani, New York Times
Contents
STORIES
Portrait of an Artist
Four Days Before the Saturday Night Social
The Man from Khurda District
Beyond Translation
The Great Game
Real Time
Prelude to an Autobiography: A Fragment
The Second Marriage
Words, Silences
The Party
Confession of a Sacrifice
The Old Masters
An Infatuation
The Wedding
White Lies
E-MINOR
E-Minor
Chasing a Poet: Epilogue
Notes