Author of more than a dozen novels, short stories, and critical writings, Mulk Raj Anand alongwith Raja Rao and R K Narayan, is frequently referred to as ‘founding father’ of Indo-English writing. Anand’s prolific writing career spanned more than 75 years. For him the written word was a medium through which he voiced his social protest. He wrote extensively on political instability, class and caste exploitation, corruption and abject poverty in India and other parts of the world. This choice selection of his early stories develops the high pitch of excellence which his readers later came to expect from him. With a sensitiveness which is uniquely tender and an imaginative fervour which is contagious, he explores some odd corners of the Indian soul and shows the technical virtuosity of a master of the short story form. All the moods are represented here, from lyricism and satire to the macabre intensity of the Lament on the Death of Master of Arts. Above all his book is inspired by ‘the gift of laughter and a sense that the world is mad’ which has from the beginning characterized the works of Mulk Raj Anand and through which he has called attention to a great deal of our tinsel glory and mawkish despair. Always, however, Anand’s fiction reveals a deep sympathy and valiant humanism, the graces of one of the finest and most gifted writers of our time.
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