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Synopsis This volume for the first time makes available to the English reading public a selection of Bibhutibhushan’s varied stories. The stories are simply told and most often center around the villages of Bengal that Bibhutibhuhan knew from Childhood. Their main concern is always with the small details and small passions of life; often the larger upheavals of society, the World Wars, the struggle for Independence in India, find but scant mention in Bibhutibhushan’s fictional world. Bibhutibhushan’s stories nonetheless in their fine attention to detail and their remarkable ability to capture subtle-emotions offer the reader an intimate account of life in India during this crucial period of change and development. Like many of his contemporaries Bibhutibhushan wrote of a world that was rapidly disintegrating; with delicacy and empathy his stories reveal to us a traditional society in flux, old values giving way to new attitudes, often at a high human cost.This volume brings together a variety of short stories by one of India’s most beloved writers. In their richness, their versatility, and their sensitivity they deserve to be numbered among the favourites of all readers of short stories, not just those in India who have enjoyed them now for decades.