Echoes and Shadows- A Selection of Dogri Short Stories

The short story genre is comparatively a new entrant in Dogri literature. It has a well charted and interesting terrain just like the region from which it has emerged. The first short story collection in Dogri was published as late as 1947.

The stories presented in this volume give us a fair glimpse of Dogra land and culture its topography. human problems and beliefs and values of the people. They hold a mirror to the contemporary Dogra society.

Dogri language is very rich in folk-tales but rather poor in short stories. Dogri short story as a distinct literary genre is barely forty-five years old; the first col lection of Dogri short stories entitled Paihla Phull was published in 1947, the year of Independence. Since then it has travelled an uneven course by fits and starts and its contours present a landscape very similar to the terrain of Dogra countryside - plains, low hills and high mountains. This selection is an attempt to introduce this comparatively less known territory to non-Dogri knowing readers.

The selection is neither comprehensive nor fully representative but it should give a fair idea of the develop ment of the genre over the years and of the concerns and sensibilities of Dogri short-story writers and also provide a glimpse of Dogra milieu-topography and Nature, human problems and relationships, and beliefs and values of the people and so on.

B.P.Sathe, the author of Paihla Phull and Ram Nath Shastri had been writing short stories since mid-forties but they published their maturer work only in early 1970's. Dogri short story actually looked up, with the ap pearance, in late fifties, of three dedicated Dogri short story writers, Narendra Khajuria, Madan Mohan Sharma and Ved Rahi who improved with each new publication and who put the genre on firm foundations. There is a story each of these five writers and Chanchal Sharma who published his collection in 1960's.

**Contents and Sample Pages**