Ratno Dholi: The Best Stories of Dhumketu
About this audiobook
Brilliant ... an iconic voice - Namita Gokhale
One of the finest short story writers from India - Aruni Kashyap
Jenny Bhatt ... deserves our gratitude and attention - Rita Kothari
Train your telescopes, ladies and gentlemen, Dhumketu is here! - Jerry Pinto
The tragic love story of a village drummer and his dancer lover...
A long-awaited letter that arrives too late...
A tea-house near Darjeeling, run by a mysterious queen...
When Dhumketu's first collection of short stories, Tankha, came out in 1926, it revolutionized the genre in India. Characterized by a fine sensitivity, deep humanism, perceptive observation and an intimate knowledge of both rural and urban life, his fiction has provided entertainment and edification to generations of Gujarati readers and speakers.
Ratno Dholi brings together the first substantial collection of Dhumketu's work to be available in English. Beautifully translated for a wide new audience by Jenny Bhatt, these much-loved stories - like the finest literature - remain remarkable and relevant even today.
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About the author
Dhumketu was the pen name of Gaurishankar Govardhanram Joshi (1892-1965), one of the foremost writers in Gujarati and a pioneer of the short story form. He published twenty-four short story collections and thirty-two novels on social and historical subjects, as well as plays, biographies, memoirs, translations, travelogues, literary criticism, etc. Dhumketu was a contemporary of Rabindranath Tagore, Munshi Premchand and Saadat Hasan Manto, and his contributions to Indian literature are just as wide-ranging and groundbreaking.
Jenny Bhatt is a writer, translator and book reviewer. Her short story collection, Each of Us Killers, was critically well-received. Her writing has appeared in venues like The Atlantic, BBC Culture, The Washington Post, Literary Hub, Longreads, The Millions, Electric Literature, and others. Born and raised in Gujarat, India, she now resides in Texas, USA.
