The condition of human soul: Review of Kafka in Ayodhya by Zafar Anjum

A slim book of short stories that covers a vast territory: Moazzam Sheikh in The News on Sunday

The prolific and multifaceted Zafar Anjum has given his readers a very slim book — not even hundred pages — of eight short stories while covering a vast territory. I don’t mean strictly in a physical sense. The reader cannot fail to notice the stories’ emotional register. It is not just a matter of inducting characters into fiction from varied ethnic, national and linguistic backgrounds or setting stories in political flashpoints, it is also having to deal with our modern and post-modern sensibilities.

The polarisation of his emotional preoccupation is evident when one story deals with the daily grind of a young, married office clerk while the one preceding it deals with authorial indignities, evident in more than one story.