'Since she was valorous, she said she was a man, and since Mahishan was speaking of love, he was feminine... If she was a combination of feminine and masculine qualities, why could he too not be a combination of the masculine and feminine?' Setting the stage with the Asura Mahishan's doomed love for the beautiful Devi, Ambai deftly combines myth and tradition with contemporary situations. In the title story, the woman who is mother, daughter, solver of all problems for her family, finds that it is only a black spider on a wall in a deserted guesthouse with whom she can share her own pain and suffering; in Burdensome Days, Bhramara enters a world of politics that turns her music into a commodity; while in A Moon to Devour, it is through her lover's mother that Sagu learns that marriage is not a necessity for motherhood. Like the strains of the veena that play again and again in this masterful concert of stories, journeys too weave in and out. By train or bus or autorickshaws, each journey takes one into a different facet of human nature: the power of caste over the most basic of bodily needs like thirst; the simple generosity of a mentally afflicted child who loves the colour blue; the loneliness of dying amongst strangers, and the final journey of a veena whose owner herself had gone before it into another world. As in most of her writing, women are central to Ambai's stories, but so too is her deep understanding of, as she puts it, 'the pulls and tensions' between the many different things that make up life and ultimately, create a story.

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An NYRB Classics Original It is a sunny summer Sunday in a remote Swiss village, and a christening is being celebrated at a lovely old farmhouse. One of the guests notes an anomaly in the fabric of the venerable edifice: a blackened post that has been carefully built into a trim new window frame. Thereby hangs a tale, one that, as the wise old grandfather who has lived all his life in the house proceeds to tell it, takes one chilling turn after another, while his audience listens in appalled silence. Featuring a cruelly overbearing lord of the manor and the oppressed villagers who must render him service, an irreverent young woman who will stop at nothing, a mysterious stranger with a red beard and a green hat, and, last but not least, the black spider, the tale is as riveting and appalling today as when Jeremias Gotthelf set it down more than a hundred years ago. The Black Spider can be seen as a parable of evil in the heart or of evil at large in society (Thomas Mann saw it as foretelling the advent of Nazism), or as a vision, anticipating H. P. Lovecraft, of cosmic horror. There’s no question, in any case, that it is unforgettably creepy.

A powerful ring. A dangerous web. When Maria inherits a strange, spider-shaped ring from her grandmother, she doesn't realize she's also inheriting a strange power -- the power to control spiders and have them do whatever she wants. This is a pretty cool thing when it comes to fetching objects from another room . . . or if Maria wants to use the spiders to get back at some mean kids in her class. But the power comes with a price. Maria has attracted the attention of the Black Widow -- who is trying to collect all the spider magic for herself. The Black Widow is not going to let anything stand in her way -- especially not Maria.The story of the ring is being woven like a web -- and Maria is going to have to do everything she can to not get trapped within it.

On the sun-drenched Riviera, where the rich and powerful gather to indulge in luxury and leisure, a shadow lurks beneath the glimmering surface. A notorious thief, known only as The Black Spider, has embarked on a spree of audacious heists, targeting the glittering jewels of Europe’s elite. Having evaded all the layers of security, bypassing guards, alarms, and locks, without leaving any sign of forced entry or exit, the Spider leaves behind a calling card: a crude drawing of a black spider, taunting his victims and the authorities alike. Enter Reginald Cosway, a shrewd and relentless detective who is determined to unmask the Spider and bring an end to the reign of terror gripping the Riviera. As the Spider continues to strike with impunity, Cosway is drawn into a deadly game of cat and mouse, where every move could be his last. First published in 1911, Carlton Dawe’s thrilling novel was subsequently adapted for both the stage and big screen.

Exploring themes of personal loss, sexuality, identity and selfhood, and a quest for meaning in a fluid world, this collection of short stories by Ambai articulates the real experience of women and communicates their silences in words and images.