I am A Woman First - Modern Hindi Short Stories

The short story is as distinctive and artistic a form in the modern age as the sonnet was in Renaissance Europe. It is a literary genre, with its own innate characteristics, that has emerged in the present times as the most popular form of people's aesthetic and literary sustenance.

The prime focus in the present selection of these twenty short stories has been on eminent Hindi writers from Bihar, generally forgotten or lesser known to the present generation of readers. The stories cover a long span of nearly seven decades comprising some of the finest examples of the form from the age of Premchand to 'Nayi Kahani' and beyond.

Writer and academician; M.A.(1959), Ph.D. (Patna Univ., 1976); served as University Professor at Bhagalpur Univ.(1959-'88), Magadh Univ. (1988-'99). After retirement, Professor of Linguistics & American Literature at Taiz Univ. (Yemen : 1998-2002). Edited a research journal JELF Contour (1972-2002).

Published works: Dr Rajendra Prasad: First President of India (2018), The Haunted Palace: A Study of Edgar Poe's Fiction (2012), A Study of Macbeth (1995),Literary Essays by Firaq (1993), Essays in Criticism (1990), Lectures on Linguistics (1984).

What is a 'short story'? Does the modifying tag 'short' indicate its length or size, or does the appellative signify some other quality? Obviously a physical measure of any literary work cannot be defined in terms of any particular length or size. When we write a short story we know that it doesn't have its boundary lines drawn like a straitjacket Petrarchan sonnet. A short story can be of only two pages or even twenty pages. 'Short' therefore is not a modifier here in its usual sense of size or length.

**Contents and Sample Pages**