"Writers of South Asian descent have been garnering more and more success, acclaim, and attention. Story-Wallah gathers the finest South Asian voices in fiction for the first time in a single volume." "In this book, some of the world's best fiction writers hawk their wares from different parts of the South Asian diaspora - Sri Lanka, India, the United States, Great Britain, Guyana, Malaysia, Trinidad, Fiji - creating a virtual map of the world with their tales. These stories explore universal themes of identity, culture, and home, and Story-Wallah includes a rich array of experiences: a honeymoon in Sri Lanka, the trials of a Bangladeshi refugee in England, life on a sugar plantation in Trinidad, the attempts of an Indian family to arrange a marriage for their rebellious daughter."--Book jacket.

In 2011, the screenwriter, lyricist and journalist Neelesh Misra started mentoring a handpicked group of writers called the Mandali. These were men and women of all ages, backgrounds and dispositions. The Mandali soon started writing radio stories in Hindi, for Misra's show Yaadon Ka Idiotbox-short, pithy, bittersweet narratives that immediately struck a chord with listeners across the country. Translated for the first time in English, this collection represents the Mandali at the height of its powers. These stories are blessed with a keen sense of place, attuned to the rhythms of both small-town India and rapidly expanding mega-cities like Delhi or Mumbai. Homesick yuppies reconnect with their hometowns, old lovers reconcile against all odds, and parents learn to get along with their grown-up children. A mother-in-law uses questionable tactics to bond with her distant daughter-in-law, a war widow learns to stand up to family, and a life-threatening mountain slope brings two strangers together. These are fresh, untamed voices aided and abetted by a master storyteller.

Recently, South Asian writers such as Salman Rushdie, Michael Ondaatje, Rohinton Mistry, Bharati Mukherjee, Jhumpa Lahiri, and Monica Ali have been dominating the world's literary scene, winning prestigious prizes, and appearing on numerous bestseller lists, and being hailed by critics and readers worldwide. Yet never before has their work appeared together in an anthology. Now, for the first time, the internationally heralded writer Shyam Selvadurai has collected the very best of South Asian short fiction in Story-Wallah!, a remarkable anthology showcasing 26 beautifully written stories whose memorable characters will remain with the reader long after they have closed the pages of this book. A "wallah" is a hawker or merchant. In Story-Wallah! some of the world's best fiction writers hawk their wares from different parts of the South Asian diaspora - Canada, the United States, Britain, Guyana, Trinidad, Malaysia, Tanzania, Fiji - creating a virtual map of the world with their tales. There is an eclectic quality to the way the stories jostle up against each other: life on a sugar plantation in Trinidad next to the story of a childhood in rural 1930's Australia. A Christmas in Fiji next to the attempts by an Indian family in South Africa to arrange a marriage for their rebellious daughter. A honeymoon in lush Sri Lanka next to the trials of a Bangladeshi refugee in England. The result is a marvelous cacophony, like early morning at a South Asian bazaar. Story-Wallah! is essential reading for anyone with an interest in South Asian writers and the dynamic, important tales they have to tell.

In this remarkable debut novel, a boy’s bittersweet passage to maturity and sexual awakening is set against escalating political tensions in Sri Lanka, during the seven years leading up to the 1983 riots. Arjie Chelvaratnam is a Tamil boy growing up in an extended family in Colombo. It is through his eyes that the story unfolds and we meet a delightful, sometimes eccentric cast of characters. Arjie’s journey from the luminous simplicity of childhood days into the more intricately shaded world of adults – with its secrets, its injustices, and its capacity for violence – is a memorable one, as time and time again the true longings of the human heart are held against the way things are.

In a boxy apartment building in an Illinois college town, Romola Mitra, a newly arrived young bride, anxiously awaits her first letter from home in India. When she accidentally opens the wrong letter, it changes her life. Decades later, her son, Amit, back in the U.S., finds the same letter and thinks he has discovered his mother's secret. But secrets carry within them their own secrets sometimes. Amit does not know that Avinash, his devoted father, lurked on gay chat rooms at times, unable to set aside his lifelong attraction to men. Avinash, for his part, had no idea about the memories of a starry romance his dutiful wife kept tucked away among her silk saris. As Amit settles down as a computer engineer in San Francisco, he too is torn between his new life here and his duties toward the one he has left behind in India. Don't Let Him Know sweeps up multiple generations of a family, moving from an illicit encounter in a Calcutta park to an unlikely friendship forged at a Carbondale gay bar, from midnight snacks of a great-grandmother's mango chutney to wayward temptations at a McDonald's drive-thru. Tender, funny, and beautifully told, it is an unforgettable story about the sacrifices we make for those we love.

Amrith comes to terms with his sexuality in this sweeping coming-of-age story set against the stormy backdrop of monsoon season in 1980s Sri Lanka. For fans of Call Me By Your Name. Shyam Selvadurai’s brilliant novels, Funny Boy and Cinnamon Gardens, have garnered him international acclaim. In his first young adult novel, he explores first love with clarity, humor and compassion. The setting is Sri Lanka, 1980, and it is the season of monsoons. Fourteen-year-old Amrith is caught up in the life of the cheerful, well-to-do household in which he is being raised by his vibrant Auntie Bundle and kindly Uncle Lucky. He tries not to think of his life “before,” when his doting mother was still alive. Amrith’s holiday plans seem unpromising: he wants to appear in his school’s production of Othello and he is learning to type at Uncle Lucky’s tropical fish business. Then, like an unexpected monsoon, his cousin arrives from Canada and Amrith’s ordered life is storm-tossed. He finds himself falling in love with the Canadian boy. Othello, with its powerful theme of disastrous jealousy, is the backdrop to the drama in which Amrith finds himself immersed.

Who can resist a good story, especially when it’s being told by Grandma? From her bag emerges tales of kings and cheats, monkeys and mice, bears and gods. Here comes the bear who ate some really bad dessert and got very angry; a lazy man who would not put out a fire till it reached his beard; a princess who got turned into an onion; a queen who discovered silk, and many more weird and wonderful people and animals. Grandma tells the stories over long summer days and nights, as seven children enjoy life in her little town. The stories entertain, educate and provide hours of enjoyment to them. So come, why don’t you too join in the fun.