A superb collection of fiction from one of India’s greatest living writers

Some of the stories included in this collection are:

-The Legends of Khasak
-The Saga of Dharmapuri
-The Infinity of Grace

O.V. Vijayan is one of the most brilliant and original of the contemporary Indian authors. His fiction, written in Malayalam, is complex and poetic, a sumptuous blend of myth, dark humour, eroticism, mystical insights and a uniquely Indian brand of magic realism. This collection brings together for the first time all four of Vijayan’s books translated into English so far. In his much-acclaimed first novel ‘The Legends of Khasak’, Ravi, a schoolteacher, arrives in the remote village of Khasak and is gradually engulfed by the dreams and fables of that ancient land. In the controversial political allegory ‘The Saga of Dharmapuri’, the tyrannical President of Dharmapuri and Siddhaartha, a travelling mystic and messiah, engage in an unending symbolic battle. In the award-winning ‘The Infinity of Grace’, Kunjunni, a journalist, goes to Calcutta to cover the Bangladesh war, and attempts to reconnect with his estranged wife and daughter who live there. Through the personal trauma that follows, he arrives at a transcendental understanding of life and the harmony implicit in apparently chaotic events.

The final section of this volume comprises twenty-one short stories—which include classics such as ‘After the Hanging’, ‘Oil’, ‘Wind Flowers’, ‘Anachronisms’ and ‘The Foetus’. Together, they bear testimony to Vijayan’s skills as an unusually innovative and evocative writer of romances, parables and tales of the supernatural.

‘A definitive collection, Selected Fiction is like a good piece of halwa. You’ll never want it to end. And by the time you’re through with it you will be a member of the Vijayan fan club.’
—The Week