This representative collection of short fiction by Premendra Mitra, one of the most important names in modern Bengali literature, unfolds a world which is chilling in its bleakness, yet leavened with humour and compassion: a world populated by members of a degenerate and impoverished aristocracy, petty criminals and clerks, and the embittered, frustrated middle classes. The people of this expressionistic landscape live in ruined, dark, ghostly mansions or in those parts of the city which are ill-lit and unpaved. They are oppressed by themselves, each other, and by their circumstances. One of the most interesting facets of these stories is the light shed on the situation of women, whose shadowed, curtailed lives are depicted with a relentless absence of sentimentality. Though set in India of the recent past, Snake and other Stories presents a series of powerfully contemporary portraits of human beings under stress. Premendra Mitra was one of the handful of individuals responsible for the new movement in Bengali literature in the 1920s and 30s which successfully challenged the monumental influence of Rabindranath Tagore. Known primarily as a poet, short-story writer and novelist, Mitra was also a broadcaster, screenplay writer and film director.
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