Ace Upon King

Ace Upon King Simplicity, say the Japanese, is the most difficult art to practice. Specially in writing. Words clamour for attention, the the sarus is at hand, craftsmanship tugs at you threatening to turn the magic of perception into obtuse metaphor and allegory. A writer who can avoid these pitfalls, yet create an honest blend of reality and fantasy is rare indeed. Achla Bansal is one such writer.

The stories in this book are strokes of individual expression which does not borrow from old or new-coined accepted metaphors. Not conforming to celebrated non-conformity is, perhaps, the most difficult conformism to avoid. The Carrom Men, The Fly, Ace Upon King, Vanilla Ice Cream and Chocolate Sauce, The Penalty, are light yet unnerving stories, which blend sharp-eyed observation with imagination to depict the dark forces which lurk beneath life's mundane exterior. Between father and son, man and woman, friend and friend, nothing is quite as it seems.

Born and brought up in Delhi, Achla Bansal took her Bachelor's degree in Economics from Miranda House, Delhi University. She then went on to do a course in journalism, little knowing that she would take to writing one day. It was much later, after a nomadic life - married to a railway man - that she returned to Delhi and started writing. Her stories have been published widely in leading dailies and journals. Some have been translated into other languages. Thanks Anyway, carried by Kali for Women in one of their anthologies, was later published in the US, UK and Germany. 'A Thousand Worlds', an anthology of stories by Indian writers, published in the US, carried another of her stories, The Carrom Men.

Her first collection of short stories, Once A Year It is March was published in 1991. Ace Upon King is her second collection. The title story was serial ised in Debonair.

**Contents and Sample Pages**