Indian Stories

A uniquely diverse Pocket Classics collection of short stories from all of the major cultures and languages of India

India has a long tradition of storytelling. To use Salman Rushdie's phrase it is "an ocean of stories." When British rule brought the Western forms of the novel and the short story to India, they were grafted onto more ancient and varied oral traditions. Rabindranath Tagore was the first to popularize this form of writing with the short story collections he published in the 1890s, but the form swiftly captured the imagination of literary figures across India and in every Indian language.

India is not only rich in stories but also in languages, and the thirty-seven stories in this collection are taken from all the major languages of India, including Tamil, Urdu, Hindi, Bengali, and many more, as well as writers in some regions who wrote primarily in English (N. K. Narayan, for example). This anthology includes one story from each region or culture, notably including several areas that are traditionally marginalized.

The stories reflect a variety of themes, ideas, and emotions, with subjects including the poverty aggravated by the dominance of landlords and the caste system; the position of women within the family; and the call of the city in a country that was and still is predominantly rural and agricultural. Indian literary fiction, born though it was under a Western star, reflected invariably realities that were distinctly Indian, and this unique anthology offers a dazzlingly varied overview of the rich cultures of the subcontinent.

Everyman's Library pursues the highest production standards, printing on acid-free, cream-colored paper, with full-cloth cases with two-color foil stamping, decorative endpapers, silk ribbon markers, European-style half-round spines, and a full-color illustrated jacket.

Author: Rudrangshu Mukherjee
Publisher: Everyman's Library
Published: 05/19/2026
Pages: 544
Binding Type: Hardcover
Weight: 1.15lbs
Size: 7.30h x 4.50w x 1.60d
ISBN: 9798217008216

About the Author
RUDRANGSHU MUKHERJEE is an Indian historian and author of several books. He was formerly the opinions editor for The Telegraph newspaper in Kolkata and is currently the chancellor of Ashoka University, where he also serves as a professor of history.