For Now, It Is Night

Book excerpt: 17 lively short stories provide an irreverent examination of exile, drawn from the ever-observant pen of one of Kashmir's most celebrated writers Hari Krishna Kaul, one of the most celebrated Kashmiri writers, published most of his work between 1972 and 2000. His short stories, shaped by the social crisis and political instability in Kashmir, explore – with a keen eye for detail, biting wit, and deep empathy – themes of isolation, individual and collective alienation, corruption, and the social mores of a community that experienced a loss of homeland, culture, and language. In these pages, we will find friends stuck forever in the same class at school while the world changes around them; travelers forced to seek shelter in a battered, windy hostel after a landslide; parents struggling to deal with displacement as they move away from Kashmir with their children, or loneliness as their children leave in search of better prospects; the cabin fever of living through a curfew . . . Brilliantly translated in a unique collaborative project, For Now, It Is Night brings a comprehensive selection of Kaul’s stories to English readers for the first time.