This touching and funny collection of stories showcases Tharoor's daunting literary acumen, as well as the keen sensitivity that informs his ability to write profoundly and entertainingly on themes ranging from family conflict to death. In the title story--written in a lonely hotel room in Geneva soon after the author began his work with the United Nations--a young Indian orphan is on his way to visit America for the first time, and his anguish and longing in the airplane seem hardly different from those of any American child.
Tharoor's admiration for P. G. Wodehouse makes "How Bobby Chatterjee Turned to Drink" a delightful homage, while "The Temple Thief," "The Simple Man," and "The Political Murder" bring to mind O. Henry and Maupassant. His three college stories, "Friends," "The Pyre," and "The Professor's Daughter," are full of youthful high jinks, naive infatuations, and ingenious wordplay. "The Solitude of the Short-Story Writer" is a smart, self-aware, Woody Allen-esque exploration of a writer's conflicted relationship with his psychiatrist.
- ISBN10 0140282483
- ISBN13 9780140282481
- Publish Date 14 October 2000 (first published 25 June 1993)
- Publish Status Out of Print
- Out of Print 11 October 2023
- Publish Country IN
- Publisher Penguin Books India Pvt Ltd
- Imprint Penguin Books India
- Format Hardcover
- Pages 248
- Language English