Poovan Banana and Other Stories

This carefully selected collection of Vaikom Muhammad Basheer’s short stories are characterised by a variety in theme and tone. He has enshrined in them every kind of experience from the pangs of hunger and sex to the rapture of mystic vision. Its range includes stark realistic pictures of the material world as well as the realm of fantasy haunted by ghosts and spirits. Basheer has written on love and hate, on politicians and pickpockets, on the fancies of childhood and on the disillusionments of adult life with an intense sense of the tragedy of life and at the same time an irrepressible sense of humour.

Basheer, Vaikom Muhammad, an active participant in the freedom movement, has written stories on varied themes and of great popular appeal, which have earned him a legendary place in Malayalam literature. Translated from the Malayalam by V Abdulla.