The Greatest Odia Stories Ever Told showcases Odia's greatest storytellers ranging from literary masters such as Fakir Mohan Senapati, Gopinath Mohanty, Reba Ray, and Manoj Das to contemporary stalwarts like Pratibha Ray, and Nrusingha Tripathy, among others. A young woman who was dragged away by a crocodile mysteriously resurfaces after a decade in Manoj Das's 'Mrs Crocodile'; a pet goat let loose in a government office causes amusement and chaos in Gopinath Mohanty's 'The Solution'; Godavaris Mahapatra's Vaguni's Bullock Cart' deals with the anxieties of a bullock cart driver stuck between the trappings of traditions and modernity—the stories in this anthology traverse an exciting range of themes from fantasy to reality, and bone-chilling horror to rib-tickling humour.
Timeless, evocative and striking, The Greatest Odia Stories Ever Told offers a rich selection of stories that are unrivalled in their range, style and complexity. Selected and translated by Leelawati Mohapatra, Paul St-Pierre, and K. K. Mohapatra, the twenty-four stories in this volume showcase the finest short fiction in Odia literature.
Leelawati Mohapatra published her debut novel, Hanging by a Tail, in 2008. She has co-translated (with K. K. Mohapatra and Paul St-Pierre) extensively from Odia into English. Her books of translation include, among others, The HarperCollins Book of Oriya Short Stories, Ants, Ghosts and Whispering Trees: An Anthology of Oriya Short Stories, J P Das: Sundardas, Fakir Mohan Senapati: The Brideprice and Other Stories, and Laxmikanta Mahapatra: Uncle One Eye.
Paul St-Pierre is a former Professor of Translation Studies at Montreal University. He has co-edited several books on translation theory and practice and has spent nearly a quarter-century collaborating with, apart from the Mohapatras, several Odia translators such as Ganeswar Mishra, Basant Kumar Tripathy, Himansu Sekhar Mohapatra, Rabindra Swain and Dipti Ranjan Patnaik.With the Mohapatras he has also recently finished a new translation of Fakir Mohan Senapati's iconic novel, Chha Mona Atha Guntha.
K. K. (Kamalakanta) Mohapatra has written three collections of short stories, a novel, a book of non-fiction, and an autobiography. He has also translated into Odia selected stories by Isaac Bashevis Singer, Jean-Paul Sartre, and Franz Kafka, as well as William Shakespeare's King Lear, and collaborated with Leelawati Mohapatra and Paul St-Pierre on numerous works of translation from Odia into English.
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215 This is no gimmicky marketing offer. It is as real as it can get. Here's why: though thick as thieves while translating, we decided, by common consent, to part ways when it came to writing the introduction. So instead of one long, bland piece, the reader can have the opportunity of sampling three different perspectives.
The introduction (being an introduction) is, umm, well, predictably, inevitably, always placed first in any anthology of short stories but usually read last. (Usually, the reader goes straight for the jugular—the stories). Sometimes this preliminary piece is skipped over entirely; sometimes returned to only afterwards as an afterthought, if the stories have had the desired effect. With so much—or so little—riding on it, we thought a bunch of three might be more tempting than one.
As I sat agonizing at my desk over my slice of the introduction, my teenage niece wandered in and wondered what I was tearing my hair out over. (For the record, I'm as bald as an egg.) After she had heard me out, she said, airily: 'No sweat. Keep it short, okay? Nobody wants to read a long, ponderous, parochial introduction to a book of stories. Remember, no aperitifs. Just bring on the main course.
' Bring on the main course indeed!
As she turned on her heels after dispensing this piece of unsolicited but sage advice, her eyes alighted on the pata chitra of the navagunjara I keep under the glass on my desk. 'I hope you're aiming at something like that!' she said. 'Good luck with the beast.'
Good luck with the beast indeed!
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