Swimmer Among the Stars
-
- $9.99
-
- $9.99
Publisher Description
"[A] remarkably crafted and imaginative debut collection of stories that span space and time" New York Times
An interview with the last speaker of a language. A chronicle of the final seven days of a town that is about to be razed to the ground by an invading army. The lonely voyage of an elephant from Kerala to a princess's palace in Morocco. A fabled cook who flavours his food with precious stones. A coterie of international diplomats trapped in near-Earth orbit.
These, and the other stories in this collection, reveal an extraordinary young storyteller, whose tales emerge from a tradition that includes the creators of the Arabian Nights, Italo Calvino, Jorge Luis Borges, Angela Carter and other ancient and modern masters of the fable.
PRAISE FOR KANISHK THAROOR
"It's a testament to the author's empathy, rich voice, and immaculate craftsmanship that the book succeeds in being all these things - even as it comforts, illuminates, and unnerves." NPR
"Tharoor's collection is imaginative and relevant." Publisher's Weekly
"...the short stories collected in Swimmer Among the Stars are so brilliantly bold and enchanting" The National
"Tharoor's greatest strength is the elegant brevity of his writing" Indian Express
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In "Cultural Property," one of the most intriguing and salient stories in Tharoor's debut collection, a young Indian archeologist is waiting on a cold beach on the North Sea, having secretly uncovered a centuries-old sword of Anglo-Saxon iron. Having just called smugglers to bring the sword to a museum in Patna, India, he imagines the sword labeled there as an artifact of "Primitive Britain," a thought that confirms for him that this act is far more than "revenge." It's these big themes of history, war, invasion, and exploration that Tharoor seeks to humanize. In the title story, an old, unnamed woman in an old, unnamed country is the "last speaker" of an old, unnamed language, and young academic ethnographers have arrived to record her, unintentionally raising all kinds of questions about the quest to capture what's already been lost. In "Elephant at Sea," a princess in Morocco requests an Indian elephant. But by the time one arrives, years later, the princess is studying abroad and everyone, including the elephant, is vexed by how one powerful person's whim can create a mess no one knows how to fix. In "A United Nations of Space," a future delegation of international ambassadors convenes in the cosmos to "rally the world around the memory of order." Though the tendency to keep characters unnamed and their lives painted in broad strokes blends the stories together, Tharoor's collection is imaginative and relevant.
