The Hungry Stones and Other Stories

The Hungry Stones and Other Stories (1916) is a collection of short stories by Rabindranath Tagore. Published following his ascension to international fame with the 1912 Nobel Prize in Literature, the collection contains some of Tagore’s most celebrated works of fiction. Before a week had passed, the place began to exert a weird fascination upon me. It is difficult to describe or to induce people to believe; but I felt as if the whole house was like a living organism slowly and imperceptibly digesting me by the action of some stupefying gastric juice. In the title story of the collection, a tax collector moves to a deserted palace on the outskirts of a small town. Devoting himself to his daily work, he returns home at night to sleep and spends as little time as possible indoors. Rumored to be haunted, the palace was built during the height of the Mughal Empire and was once a symbol of fortune for all those who entered its gate or passed it by along the road. For Srijut, however, it is a source of terror and unease, a living entity filled with restless spirits who all seem to vie for his soul. Elsewhere in the collection, Tagore explores the lives of rich and poor, giving voice to struggling writers, suffering wives, and young servants alike with an ease and familiarity possessed by the purest of storytellers. With a beautifully designed cover and professionally typeset manuscript, this edition of Rabindranath Tagore’s The Hungry Stones and Other Stories is a classic of Indian literature reimagined for modern readers.