Some of the world's finest short fiction has originated (and continues to flow) from the cities, villages, rivers, forests and plains of Bengal.This selection features twenty-one of the very best stories from the region. Here, the reader will find one of Rabindranath Tagore's most revered stories The Kabuliwallah' in a glinting new translation, memorable studies of ordinary people by Tarashankar and Bibhutibhushan Bandyopadhyay, the iconic Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyay's wrenching study of Bengali society Mahesh', as well as over a dozen other timeless stories by some of the greatest practitioners of the form-Buddhadeva Bose, Ashapurna Debi, Premendra Mitra, Satyajit Ray, Ritwik Ghatak, Mahasweta Devi, Sunil Gangopadhyay and Nabarun Bhattacharya, among others. These are stories of anger, loss, grief, disillusionment, magic, politics, trickery humour and the darkness to be found in the mind and the heart. They reimagine life in ways that make them unforgettable.