Congratulation to R K Biswas on her new collection, Breasts and Other Afflictions of Women. The collection includes the story, Word Among Poets that appears in Out of Print.
Asked about putting together the collection, she said:
RK Biswas' short story collection Breasts and
Other Afflications of Women is a garden of delights. Each story is a
nugget of wit and wisdom plumbing the depths of what it means to be a woman at
different stages of her life-- single, married, widowed. Biswas writes with an
emotionally fluid pen, her descriptions crisp and precise whether we are
following an aged maid who finds herself out of a much needed job, or a modern
woman desperately seeking a job for self-fulfillment. Biswas takes us to
simmering kitchens in India and rainy streets in Singapore, to marital
battlegrounds and playgrounds where teachers and students connect and, as her
characters find meaning in their lives, so you too will see your hopes and
dreams reflected in these heartfelt stories.
Asked about putting together the collection, she said:
I
love short stories, as a reader and as a writer. I find them enjoyable and
challenging. I seriously don't understand why people say short stories are hard
to sell. I usually try out a new writer through his/her short fiction. Most of
the stories in this book were written a few years earlier, and published in
various journals and anthologies around the world. The oldest - Sunset in the Hills was published in
2001 in Gowanus. I keep writing stories and sending them out. Strangely, it had
not occurred to me before to put them together as a collection. When I did get
down to the task, I found (after sorting through them) that they
needed to be collected into more volumes than one or two. One
bunch of stories contain tales with men as the protagonists, and this bunch had
women, so the first two collections (the second is on its way) was easier to
put together. The subsequent ones will need more planning, I guess. In Breasts and Other Afflictions of Women
I've tried to put in those stories that best represented the frailties of
women, physical, social and psychological. I hope at least some of the
stories resonate with readers.
We, at Out of Print, are quite sure that more than one story will resonate with our readers!
We, at Out of Print, are quite sure that more than one story will resonate with our readers!
RK Biswas' short story collection Breasts and
Other Afflications of Women is a garden of delights. Each story is a
nugget of wit and wisdom plumbing the depths of what it means to be a woman at
different stages of her life-- single, married, widowed. Biswas writes with an
emotionally fluid pen, her descriptions crisp and precise whether we are
following an aged maid who finds herself out of a much needed job, or a modern
woman desperately seeking a job for self-fulfillment. Biswas takes us to
simmering kitchens in India and rainy streets in Singapore, to marital
battlegrounds and playgrounds where teachers and students connect and, as her
characters find meaning in their lives, so you too will see your hopes and
dreams reflected in these heartfelt stories.
Soniah Kamal
author of the novel An Isolated Incident, and the satire Hairy Potter: Collected Columns.
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