A classic collection of stories showcasing some of India’s best-known writers After a hesitant start towards the end of the ninetheenth century, short fiction in Malyalam came into its own in the 1930s. Since then, writer has experimented with content , style and language to give the genre a unique standing in contemporary Indian litereature as perhaps the most translated, not just into English and other Indian languages but also into other media such as flim and televison. From Vaikom Muhammed Basheer and O.. Vijayan to Kamamla Das and Sarah Joesph, this volume brings together an extraordinary range of writers and themes. There are among others, M.T. Vasudevan Mair’s ‘ Oppol’, a story about childhood innoccence and loss, which was made into award-winning flim, Paul Zacharia’s ‘Bhaskara Pattelar and my Life’ a brilliant psychological examination of the master-slave dialectic; Lalithambika Antherjanam’s path-breaking ‘Goddess of Revenge’ in which a young Namboodiri woman becomes a prostitute to expose the hypocrisy of her husband and their rigidly orthodox community; and N.S. Madhavan’s classic story of an upper-caste widowwho finds redemption in the forbidden touch of a Pulaya. Translated with flair and integrity, these stories capture the vibrancy of a literary culture at its creative best.