Kitaab launches the best asian short stories 2020 at the singapore writers festival (swf) 2020

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With a Foreword by celebrated poet, novelist and critic Tabish Khair and edited by the founder of Kitaab, Zafar Anjum, the fourth volume of The Best Asian Short Stories 2020 (TBASS 2020) has been launched at the Singapore Writers Festival (SWF) this year.

From the mountains of Uttrakhand in India to the Rocky Mountain in Canada, the stories in this volume represent the multitude of Asian voices that capture the wishes, aspirations, dreams and conflicts of people inhabiting a vast region of our planet. While some contributions deal with the themes of migration, pandemics and climate change, others give us a peek into the inner workings of the human heart through the prism of these well-wrought stories. This volume is the expression of a community, “a community of Asian writing that stands on its own two – no, its own million – feet!”, as novelist and critic Tabish Khair says in his ‘Foreword’.

This volume features 17 stories from writers across the world. They include Scott P. Salcedo, Seema Punwani, Kelly Kaur, Yap Swi Neo, Karen Kwek, Murali Kamma, Darryl Whetter, Adeline Tan, Jasmine Adams, Sarah Soh, Moazzam Sheikh, Sudeep Sen, Areeba Nasir, Donna Tang, Phong Huynh, Farah Ghuznavi and Jon Gresham. Three stories by writers Eric Wee, Prachi Topiwala and Sonaha Manzoor have been selected as Web specials that will be published at tbass.org.

Copies of this volume can be ordered from the festival bookstore here (local shipping is free).

About the editor
Zafar Anjum is a Singapore-based writer, publisher and filmmaker. He is the author of The Resurgence of Satyam (Penguin Random House, 2012), Startup Capitals: Discovering the Global Hotspots of Innovation (Penguin Random House, 2014), and Iqbal: The Life of a Poet, Philosopher and Politician (Penguin Random House, 2014). His short story collections include The Singapore Decalogue (Red Wheelbarrow Press, 2012) and Kafka in Ayodhya and Other Stories (Kitaab, 2015). He is the series editor of the Best Asian series. He is also the founder of Kitaab and Filmwallas.

All volumes of The Best Asian series can be ordered from kitaabstore.com.