For Now It Is Night

Brought into English by a team of translators, these 18 short stories are a masterful collaborative effort, often achieved through repeated listenings to recordings of the Kashmir. Together, they recover the small and large dramas of a syncretic society since unraveled in these musical, rhythmic stories. Rescued from an old Kashmiri home and brought together from the pages of out-of-print magazines and fading library copies, this collection resurrects the work of a doyen of Kashmiri Pandit literature, never before translated into English. Kaul''s candid stories spill over with detail as they convey everyday life in a Kashmir rendered extraordinary by simmering political conflict and the 1990s exodus of the Pandit community. In prose that captures the dramatic intensity of the radio and television plays Kaul wrote for a Kashmiri-speaking audience, his characters navigate their ever-changing environs with biting humour as they make uncomfortable compromises to survive. From two students