Indian Short Story: A Critical Evaluation

Book excerpt: As a literary genre, Indian short story, next to poetry, is the most popular and accepted form of literature for its variety and nuance of Indian experience. Evolving over time, it has gained wide currency among people. Even after its recourse to traditional rules of the craft, Indian short story amazingly presents itself an original and distinctive form of art. Developed out of contemporary native literature and western storytelling technique, Indian short story presents an amalgation of two different literary traditions which has become unique and distinctive in course of time and long been catering to the taste of people. Ever since its origin, it has already witnessed a plethora of Indian writers who have made significant contributions to this genre by encapsulating the essence of Indian life and culture. They are Rabindranath Tagore, Munshi Premchand, R.K. Narayan, Mulk Raj Anand, Ismat Chughtai, Ruskin Bond, Khushwant Singh, Saadat Hasan Manto, Ashapurna Devi, Jhumpa Lahiri, Anita Desai, Kiran Desai, Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni, Anita Nair, Qurratulain Hyder, Namita Gokhale, Madhulika Liddle , just to name a few. At present Indian short story has taken a wider form, much more than earlier and almost every writer has started trying her or his hand at this field that it is too difficult for one to sum up the whole in one singular work. Still this present book is an endeavour to compile the works of major Indian short story writers in a short but comprehensive way in order to supply the best possible materials to readers, writers, academics, scholars and students who wish to do further studies in this field. There are twenty six chapters in this book which together presents a rich tapestry of this genre. Hopefully this book will march towards many unexplored realms exciting many curious minds, restarting many fruitful dialogues and invigorating many fresh and new ideas among academics, scholars and students alike.