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The Tamil Story: Through The Times, Through The Tides
Spanning close to a century, this pioneering anthology deftly traces the evolution of the Tamil short story, a genre that the Tamils have subsumed effortlessly to create illuminating glimpses of life. Like all timeless masterpieces, these eighty-eight finely etched stories will both hold you spellbound and jolt you out of your complacency as they traverse through the changing landscapes of different times, highlighting at once the uniqueness and the universality of life.
Culled from every available source – little-known magazines from the turn of the previous century and out-of-print editions from yesteryears to contemporary literary magazines and innumerable anthologies of both serious and popular short fiction – the writings include not only stalwarts such as Pudumaippittan, Mauni, Sundara Ramaswamy and Ashokamitran, to name just a few, but also unsung women writers and path-breaking modern voices. Carefully and sensitively translated, these nuanced, chiselled gems reflect nearly all the aesthetic and political perspectives that make up the Tamil short story. Rooted in realism and fantasy, framed on folklore and myth, steeped in irony and angst, underscored by humour and pathos, there is a story for every reader, a story which will surely leave an indelible imprint on the mind.
Culled from every available source – little-known magazines from the turn of the previous century and out-of-print editions from yesteryears to contemporary literary magazines and innumerable anthologies of both serious and popular short fiction – the writings include not only stalwarts such as Pudumaippittan, Mauni, Sundara Ramaswamy and Ashokamitran, to name just a few, but also unsung women writers and path-breaking modern voices. Carefully and sensitively translated, these nuanced, chiselled gems reflect nearly all the aesthetic and political perspectives that make up the Tamil short story. Rooted in realism and fantasy, framed on folklore and myth, steeped in irony and angst, underscored by humour and pathos, there is a story for every reader, a story which will surely leave an indelible imprint on the mind.
- GenresShort StoriesFiction
608 pages, Kindle Edition
Published April 9, 2016
32 people are currently reading
169 people want to read
About the author
Dilip Kumar
5 books6 followersDilip Kumar, whose mother tongue is Gujarathi, is a well-known short story writer and editor in Tamil with several awards to his credit. He is a Chennai-based bookshop owner. He has published three short-story collections and a critical work on Late Mouni, a pioneer of Tamil short stories. He has also translated poems, short stories, and other texts from Hindi, Gujarathi, and English into Tamil. He has edited a volume of Contemporary Tamil Short Fiction (in English) published in 1999. More recently, he has completed editing a huge volume of Tamil short stories—entitled 100 Years of Tamil Short Stories—translated into English to be published by Westland Ltd. His stories have been translated into Malayalam, Kannada, Telugu, Bengali, Gujarati, Hindi, English, French, Czech, and German. He has given talks on contemporary Tamil literature at the Universities of California and Chicago, and Yale, as well as at INALCO, France. He has also served as a jury member of the panel for the prestigious Crossword National Award for best translation and for the Sahithya Akademi translation awards.
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
July 11, 2025
Everything I loved about this anthology of Tamil short stories.
Back in February I took 5 days to read this 600 pager which includes 88 short stories spanning 9 decades of the short story form in the Tamil language. The experience was great – not because this is a flawless piece of work, but there is a lot of substance to engage with, and one post is definitely not going to be enough.
That's first. You can't ignore this anthology, I found shortcomings too, but there's a lot of richness here, so it is safe to expect multiple posts dissecting my favourite stories, and also primarily listing them all.
It starts at a time when literary snobbery hadn't arrived yet, not in India, atleast, and the Tamil language being older than stones and mud has always been filled with literary experimentation. Dilip Kumar has to be commended for compiling an inclusive and cohesive set here. Inclusive when it comes to sub-genres and plot lines, cohesive in showing the growth of the language and her people too. All of which wouldn't have been possible without Subashree Krishnaswamy's Tamil to English translation, particularly notable was her shift in style.
The English – Every culture has her own dialectical English but the Tamilized English code switch could have been lessened, not that they make the stories less "literary", plus the translator talks about the same in the introduction itself so no worries there.
From erotica to magical realism, from metaphorical and tales of sisterhood, coming-of-age and philosophical, Dilip Kumar and Subashree Krishnaswamy have picked them all. An anthology you should not miss.
You are going to love the synopsis of my favourite stories.
Back in February I took 5 days to read this 600 pager which includes 88 short stories spanning 9 decades of the short story form in the Tamil language. The experience was great – not because this is a flawless piece of work, but there is a lot of substance to engage with, and one post is definitely not going to be enough.
That's first. You can't ignore this anthology, I found shortcomings too, but there's a lot of richness here, so it is safe to expect multiple posts dissecting my favourite stories, and also primarily listing them all.
It starts at a time when literary snobbery hadn't arrived yet, not in India, atleast, and the Tamil language being older than stones and mud has always been filled with literary experimentation. Dilip Kumar has to be commended for compiling an inclusive and cohesive set here. Inclusive when it comes to sub-genres and plot lines, cohesive in showing the growth of the language and her people too. All of which wouldn't have been possible without Subashree Krishnaswamy's Tamil to English translation, particularly notable was her shift in style.
The English – Every culture has her own dialectical English but the Tamilized English code switch could have been lessened, not that they make the stories less "literary", plus the translator talks about the same in the introduction itself so no worries there.
From erotica to magical realism, from metaphorical and tales of sisterhood, coming-of-age and philosophical, Dilip Kumar and Subashree Krishnaswamy have picked them all. An anthology you should not miss.
You are going to love the synopsis of my favourite stories.
April 1, 2019
A well researched and carefully put together anthology of Tamil short story. This anthology traces the Tamil story from the beginning to the present times. The translations capture the essence and flavour of the stories well. For anyone interested in teaching, reading or translation of stories, this is a must have item.
May 12, 2019
The Tamil Story: Through The Times, Through The Tides by Dilip Kumar... A Fantastic read... its a compilation of the evolution of short story writing in Tamil over the past century, the authors have selected the representative story of the various years on the culture, social and religious aspects. The highlight is the translation, wherein the slang and the flavour was never missed out.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews