Story-Wallah

Writers of South Asian descent have been garnering more and more success acclaim and attention. Story-Wallah gathers the finest South Asian voices in fiction for the first time in a single volume. As Shyam Selvadurai writes in his introduction The stories jostle up against each other . . . The effect is a marvelous cacophony that reminds me of . . . one of those South Asian bazaars a bargaining carnival-like milieu. The goods on sale in this instance being stories hawked by story-traders: story-wallahs. In this book some of the world''s best fiction writers hawk their wares from different parts of the South Asian diaspora -- Sri Lanka India the United States Great Britain Guyana Malaysia Trinidad Fiji -- creating a virtual map of the world with their tales. These stories explore universal themes of identity culture and home and Story-Wallah includes a rich array of experiences: a honeymoon in Sri Lanka the trials of a Bangladeshi refugee in England life on a sugar plantation in Trinidad the attempts of an Indian family to arrange a marriage for their rebellious daughter. This anthology is essential reading for anyone with an interest in South Asian writers and the dynamic important tales they have to tell.