A bohemian and an iconoclast, the figure of Saadat Hasan Manto looms large over the literature of the Indian subcontinent. We know of his stories on the horrors of Partition and the struggles of prostitutes. But neither Partition nor prostitution gave birth to the genius of Manto. They only furnished him with an occasion to reveal the truth of the human condition. My Name Is Radha is a path-breaking edition of stories which delves deep into Manto’s creative world, and refreshingly brings i...

What I am interested in, says Abdullah Hussein, is how people survive. How they invent ways and means of dealing with their situation in given circumstances and what happens to them in the course of it, how they stand of fall. All writers, I believe, are interested in modes of survival.This collection includes three long short stories—Night, The Little Brook and The Sea—all examining, in one way or the other, the limits of human endurance.In language that abounds in rich, sensuous imagery, Ab...

From nuclear proliferation to Jihadi terrorism, the partition of India continues to cast a long shadow even today. Nobody expected the liberation of India and the birth of Pakistan to be so bloody. But in 1946, a full year before Independence, a terrible cycle of riots began, starting with Calcutta and going on to engulf many parts of the country. As the British rushed to leave, thousands of Hindus, Muslims and Sikhs were brutally killed in communal violence. Midnight’s Furies vividly recr...

"The undisputed master of the modern Indian short story." —Salman RushdieStories encircling the marginalized, forgotten lives of Bombay, set against the backdrop of the India-Pakistan Partition.By far the most comprehensive collection of stories by this twentieth century master available in English.A master of the short story, Saadat Hasan Manto opens a window onto Bombay's demimonde—its prostitutes, rickshaw drivers, artists, and s...

On the outskirts of Casablanca, next to the dump, is the shantytown of Sidi Moumen, where Yachine and his ten brothers grew up in the aimless chaos of drugs, violence, unemployment, and despair. The barefoot boys started their own football team - the Stars of Sidi Moumen. They played amongst the rocks, detritus, and buried skeletons of the dump but they dreamed of becoming the best football players of all time. Then their dreams changed. Yachine's older brother Hamid started growing a bear...

A classic novel from one of the great contemporary writers of Egypt and the Middle EastCairo, January 1952. Egypt is at a critical point in its modern history, struggling to throw off the yoke of the seventy-year British occupation and its corrupt royalist allies. Hamza is a committed young radical, his goal to build a secret armed brigade to fight for freedom, independence, and national self-esteem. Fawziya is a woman with a mission too, keen to support the cause....

This carefully selected collection of Vaikom Muhammad Basheers short stories are characterised by a variety in theme and tone. He has enshrined in them every kind of experience from the pangs of hunger and sex to the rapture of mystic vision. Its range includes stark realistic pictures of the material world as well as the realm of fantasy haunted by ghosts and spirits. Basheer has written on love and hate, on politicians and pickpockets, on the fancies of childhood and on the disillusionments...

The only fiction collection available in English translation by the Arab world's greatest short-story writer of the twentieth centuryYusuf Idris (1927–91), who belonged to the same generation of pioneering Egyptian writers as Naguib Mahfouz and Tawfiq al-Hakim, is widely celebrated as the father of the Arabic short story. He studied and practiced medicine, but his interests were in politics and the support of the nationalist struggle, and in writing—and his writing...

The Indian short story is extraordinary in its ability to stick to the traditional rules of the craft and still demonstrate remarkable originality. It revolves around a limited number of characters, confines itself in time and space, and has a well-plotted narrative that drives its central theme. Within the traditional framework, however, creativity flowers and a fresh and imaginative story emerges. This volume is chock-full with such stories, written by authors well known in their regiona...

Naguib Mahfouz's haunting novella of post-revolutionary Egypt combines a vivid pychological portrait of an anguished man with the suspense and rapid pace of a detective story.After four years in prison, the skilled young thief Said Mahran emerges bent on revenge. He finds a world that has changed in more ways than one. Egypt has undergone a revolution and, on a more personal level, his beloved wife and his trusted henchman, who conspired to betray him to the police, are now married...

A gripping and beautiful novel from Elif Shafak, Booker-shortlisted author of The Island of Missing Trees and 10 Minutes 38 Seconds in this Strange WorldOne rainy afternoon in Istanbul a woman walks into a doctor's surgery. 'I want an abortion,' she announces. She is nineteen years old, and unmarried. What happens that afternoon will change her life, and the lives of everyone around her.Twenty years later, Asya Kazanci lives with her exten...

'A comfortable chair and a Mary Stewart: total heaven. I'd rather read her than most other authors.' Harriet EvansLegend has it that when the Gabriel Hounds run howling over the crumbling palace of Dar Ibrahim, high in the Adonis Valley of Lebanon, death will follow on their heels. When rich, spoilt Christie Mansel arrives at the decaying palace to look after her eccentric Aunt Harriet, she arrives to the sound of howling dogs. The palace is riddled with hidden pas...