How did the short story in Tamil literature evolve? This was the question editor Dilip Kumar (who had previously edited Contemporary Tamil Short Fiction) and translator Subashree Krishnaswamy wanted to examine when they set out to compile their new book, The Tamil Story.
Sub-titled “Through the times, through the tides”, The Tamil Story was painstakingly put together by Dilip and Subashree, after combing through all the available sources where short stories were published: libraries and private collections, literary journals, popular magazines, anthologies of old literary magazines, short story collections of individual authors and collected anthologies of various writers. Eighty-eight short stories spanning nine decades (1913-2000) were finally selected for inclusion in their book.
These stories are not just literary gems in themselves — they also document the societal landscapes prevalent when they were written and straddle a range of social concerns relevant to those times.
