50 Stories

A young Jesus Christ in crisis goes for a shave at a barber’s shop. At a blood bank, a Dracula-esque figure draws in a desperate youth. A wild, mysterious alchemist tells his patients strange riddles. The Devil appears at the window of a devout man, asking for ten proofs of the existence of the Almighty. A man becomes the receptacle for the impulses of the dead, the thoughts sent out by black holes, and the emanations of God floating around in outer space….

These and the forty-five other stories in this book are testament to the extraordinary imagination of the awardwinning Malayalam writer, Paul Zacharia. In the worlds he conjures into being, many of them metaphysical and spellbinding, things are usually not what they might appear to be at first sight. With erudition and dark humour, the author mercilessly exposes human frailties, shows us how desire and sexuality can drive stunning outcomes, and portrays better than any politician or priest can how the intertwining of religion and politics can only lead to disastrous ends. If there is a single thread that binds these stories together it is that Zacharia’s tragicomic lens spares no one and nothing.

Translated brilliantly from the Malayalam, these are stories of vivid alternate realities that will enchant lovers of magical realism, surrealism, and literature that creates a sense of wonder