[Jayaprakash]

I love short stories and believe they're a harder format to pull off than the novel, which can be messy and bloated and still, in the balance, work as a novel. There's less room for error in a short story.

Somerset Maugham's short stories are excellent models of how much characterisation and depth can be achieved in this brief span. Thomas Mann achieved a great deal of depth of character in some of his short stories as well, such as Tonio Kroger or Tristan.

Amongst Indian writers, I'm drawn to the short stories of Naiyer Masud and Vilas Sarang, who turn the matter of everday life and mundane insanity into strange, phantasmagorical and often deeply moving tales that are perfect at their length. Both writers have been published by Penguin India in translation - it's worth seeking them out (although in the case of Sarang I'd strongly suggest the earlier short story collection, Fair Tree Of The Void and not Women In Cages, which contains much of the same material reworked, and not entirely for the better). RK Narayan's short stories are of a different type - gentle, whimsical and benevolently shrewd about human nature and altogether delightful.