Story-Wallah: Short Fiction from South Asian Writers

I picked this book up over the weekend and have not been able to put it down. I refuse! While I know that I should savor each story, I must greedily read them all as soon as possible because never before has such exquisite South Asian writing been compiled, and you will feel compelled to take it with you everywhere you go.The introduction written by the editor is beautiful and shows his passion for the written word, is very honest and also gives a brief yet impressively detailed history of the region for those of us who are not natives, and the stories chosen represent writers and people from all over the world. One minute you're in Trinidad on a sugar plantation, the next in a wealthy home in South Africa. Some are side-splittingly funny, others sad, others very poignant.Included is the perfect introduction to Salman Rushdie if you're unfamiliar with his work; it often seems daunting but now I feel ready to read more. You'll feel the same way about the other authors included in this collection, so be sure to keep a pen and paper handy because you will be ordering more of everything that you find here...each story is a rich literary truffle that seduces you, makes you come to this very site and order everything you can possibly find. Good thing most of them can be found here.That is all.

Not a fan of this genre of literature. Can not understand why a teacher would have to pick this obscure work for the class to read.

I am fascinated by cultures outside the U.S., particularly those of Asian, S. Asian & Middle Eastern countries where "arranged marriages" are still the norm & remain so in the 21st century. I wish to understand the pros & cons of these marriages and the empowerment of women in these cultures...where the power may lie "hidden"...utilized in sublte ways unseen by those looking in from the outside & those within. Well written short stories make for excellent bedtime reading!

Really liked this collection of stories. All are evocative and poignant. Gritty characterisation in all of them. Did have problems coping with the creation of accent in the story set in Trinidad. Salman Rushdie's story was excellent. Good to read if you arent familiar with any of these authors. Worth pursuing books by people such as Jhumpa Lahiri.

Ordered this for class. Some interesting stories, but a fairly average read as far as I'm concerned.

Pretty good story

This book was published in 2004 and contained 26 works by as many authors. As far as could be judged, there were 24 short stories and two excerpts from novels. The editor's intention was to showcase good English-language writing by authors from what was called the South Asian diaspora -- those with a heritage stemming from India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, or Sri Lanka who were living elsewhere.Countries of birth included India (Anita Desai, Bharati Mukherjee, Salman Rushdie, Rohinton Mistry, Ginu Kamani and Sandip Roy), Pakistan (Zulfikar Ghose, Rukhsana Ahmad and Aamer Hussein), Bangladesh (Monica Ali and Numair Choudhury) and Sri Lanka (Chitra Fernando, Michael Ondaatje, Romesh Gunasekera and Shyam Selvadurai, the editor). Other countries of birth were Australia (Mena Abdullah), Malaysia (K. S. Maniam), Singapore (Kirpal Singh), Fiji (Raymond Pillai), South Africa (Farida Karodia), Kenya (M. G. Vassanji), England (Hanif Kureishi and Jhumpa Lahiri), Ireland (Shani Mootoo), Trinidad (Sam Selvon) and Guyana (Rooplall Monar). With a few exceptions, the authors were living in a nation different from the one of their birth: Canada, the US, the UK, New Zealand, and so on.The oldest writer was Sam Selvon (1923-94), the youngest was Numair Choudhury (1975-). The pieces ranged roughly from the 1950s and 60s (Selvon, Abdullah) to the early 2000s (Ali, Choudhury), but nearly two-thirds were from the 1990s. Of all the authors, 10 were women.Subjects included poverty, family obligations and striving in the countryside, told sometimes with humor and in dialect (the authors from Trinidad and Guyana). Conflict between old and young generations in the city and country, emigrants and relatives from back home, or conflict between immigrants and spouses and those around them (Kureishi, for example). Family dynamics, coming of age, the search for a mate, and approaching death. Few stories focused on, say, the relation between a husband and wife over time.A handful of the works from the 1990s and after included closeted gay characters (Karodia, Selvadurai, Roy) or a degree of sexual explicitness (Kamani) that was rare in South Asian diaspora writing read thus far. Another noticeable thing was how few contemporary stories there were showing educated young South Asian men and women getting along.For this reader, the stories most enjoyed were "The Perfection of Giving" by one of the older authors, Chitra Fernando. It was a pointed moral tale that combined tragedy with subtle humor. "Karima" by Aamer Hussein described an older woman's displacement and struggles to survive in East and West Pakistan and then the UK. In "Captives" by Romesh Gunasekera, the local manager of a Sri Lankan hotel sought to satisfy a foreign couple; the story was memorable for suggesting his complex feelings without spelling them out. In "Auld Lang Syne" by Sandip Roy, a white-collar Indian emigrant to the US returned home on vacation and encountered an estranged close friend. In all these works, it was the subtlety and close attention to behavior and emotions that impressed.Not all the stories were this enjoyable, but many were. Others relied on humor of the exuberant type (Rushdie) or focused on the scatological (Singh) or a larger than life character (Ondaatje). The work by the editor, Selvadurai, described well the feeling of its main character in the midst of a childhood rivalry.The story by Ghose, published in 1997, showed a Moslem family in an unnamed nation trying to drown out the sounds of the nearby mosque, which denounced Western influences, and later suffering an attack by thugs on their party. The denouncers were likened to Nazis and supporters of apartheid. The recent work by Desai was interesting partly for a shift in time: it began in the present and then began moving backward.The editor's introduction acknowledged that a notable absence from the collection was V. S. Naipaul -- a story of his had been sought, but permission to reprint hadn't been secured. Other interesting English-language authors omitted from the collection: Ahmed Essop of South Africa, Shiva Naipaul of Trinidad/the UK, Neil Bissoondath of Trinidad/Canada, Anjana Appachana of India/the US, and Meira Chand of the UK/Japan/Singapore. And from languages besides English, Ghulam Abbas in Urdu.

The media could not be loaded. Too costly for a paperback but I had to buy this for some work.