Here, translation unlocks stories from languages afar, people unknown yet familiar in voices that stun you and resonate with you. Here is your book of world stories

 

FICTION

The Palace – Dipen Bhattacharya

An alien dusk descended as the fiery colors of the sunlight burned the clouds at the very edge of the sky. A wispy melancholic light meandered into the gray corner of the room, refracting through the delicate glass of a china lampshade...

A Deal with Destiny – Subodh Jawadekar

After nine months, Anim was born. The baby was dark-skinned, alert. Robust. With jet-black eyes and a thick mop of curly hair. Aadit's and Sajani's happiness knew no bounds...

Sun-dusted bones – Deb Bandyopadhyay

The sky asked the river β€˜How do I look?’...

Azrael’s Call – Hamiruddin Middya

She suddenly sat bolt upright, pointed to a corner and screamed, β€œLook Khadu, look at that hideous black cat glaring at me. Drive it away, I am scared stiff!” The visitors were shocked no end...

Marco Polo Travels : 2020 – Amar Mitra

One of them had started for Venice, Italy. Marco Polo, the wanderer, on his way back to Venice, had arrived in a new country. So began this world-travelogue...

Parables of Pandemic – Romel Rahman

One day, a virus-infected patient came to the buffalo in the middle of the night. Hugging the beast, he started wailing. He begged the buffalo to take his disease...

Blue (The Night We Died of Plague) – Giuseppe A. SamonΓ 

All dishevelled, she comes through the woods along the path joining her house to ours, brandishing a newspaper and shouting, cholera! cholera! And indeed the front page announces three or four cases in Naples, maybe even ten – along with mussels, vibrio bacteria, panic...

Purple Candles – Avishek Parui

Feelings from the past haunt the story from inside, sometimes articulated or implicitly revealed, but often not, expressed rather as contradictions, gaps and intensities in physical presence...

What We Really Wanted – Romel Rahman/Abhishek Roy

A satirical take on exploitation and further deprivation of the poor in Pandemic...