The Faces and Other Stories

The faces, an anthology of twelve short stories by Dibyendu Palit, a noted Bengali writer, is evocative of the growing isolation in an urban context. Amongst others, the faces in this volume are of a middle-class man whose own weakness forces him to look up to the local ruffian to protect him against more ruffians like him; a housewife who feels trapped in a marriage that ties her destiny with the runs scored by her cricketer husband; and a mother living out her last days in an old-age home finding escape from her alienation by surrounding herself with imagined faces of the loved ones who never visit her.