Thursday, June 26, 2014

Ten top stories about Indian families

Losing Touch, Sandra Hunter's first novel, originated from a short story that won the 2005 Glimmer Train Short Short Fiction Award.

At the Guardian, Hunter tagged a top ten list of stories about Indian families, including:
The Shadow Lines by Amitav Ghosh

This was riveting from start to end. I'm always fascinated when the narrator is unnamed. This one's in love with his family's stories and grows up to be a professional story-seeker – a researcher. He sees the world, secondhand, through his family's memories of London, Calcutta, and Dhaka – memories that are more vivid to him than his own experiences. He is in Calcutta during the terrible riots of 1964, but the violence leaves him with vague impressions he can't describe. The story's tragedy is that without his family's narrative voices he is unable to take part in his own world.
Read about another entry on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue