‘You cannot catch a city in words. You cannot catch a city at all,’ write the editors of this anthology. So how do you get the spirit of India’s great metropolis, the Maya Nagari, the city of dreams, between the covers of a book? Shanta Gokhale and Jerry Pinto decide to bring together their favourite short stories about the city they call home, and hope that a narrative will emerge. And it does—a rich, varied, vibrant portrait of the republic that goes by many names—Bombay, Mumbai, Momoi, Bambai and many others.
In the twentyone stories of this collection, there is the city that labours in the mills and streets, and the city that sips and nibbles in fivestar lounges; the city of Ganapati and Haji Malang and the Virgin Mary; the city that is a sea of people and speaks at least a dozen languages. There are stories translated from Marathi, Urdu, Gujarati, Tamil, Hindi, Kannada, Malayalam, and stories written originally in English. Among the writers are legends and new voices—Baburao Bagul, Ismat Chughtai, Pu La Deshpande, Urmila Pawar, Mohan Rakesh, Saadat Hasan Manto, Ambai, Jayant Kaikini, Bhupen Khakhar, Cyrus Mistry, Vilas Sarang, Tejaswini ApteRahm and Anuradha Kumar.
Maya Nagari is a majestic book on a majestic city. It will be read and cherished for years.
About the Author
Shanta Gokhale—writer, translator and critic—writes in Marathi and English and also translates between the two languages. Among the awards she has received are the Sangeet Natak Akademi Award for her contribution to the performing arts; the Maharashtra State Award for the best novel of the year (for Rita Welinkar and Tya Varshi); the Sahitya Akademi Award for translation; and lifetime achievement awards from Tata Literature Live! and the Ooty Literary Festival.
Jerry Pinto is the author of the novels The Education of Yuri, Murder in Mahim and Em and the Big Hoom, and the nonfiction book Helen. He has also published landmark translations from Marathi and Hindi, among them: Baburao Bagul’s story collection Jevha Mi Jaat Chorli Hoti (When I Hid My Caste) ; Sachin Kundalkar’s novel Cobalt Blue; and the memoirs of Daya Pawar (Baluta), Malika Amar Shaikh (I Want to Destroy Myself), and Swadesh Deepak (I Have Not Seen Mandu). Among the awards Jerry has received are the WindhamCampbell Prize, the Sahitya Akademi Award and the National Award for the Best Book on Cinema.
+91 9818282497