The Storyteller's TaleBy Omair Ahmad, Penguin, £8.99
IIn the 1700s a storyteller flees the city of Delhi, his beloved home and something of a cultural paradise, which is being torn apart by the forces of Ahmad Shah Abdali.
Wandering aimlessly in the woods, in fear of bandits and soldiers, he happens on an isolated estate, where he seeks shelter and food. There he finds the begum, or lady, of the house alone with her retinue; her husband is away, taking part in the destruction and looting of the city that the narrator holds so dear.
He is struck by her beauty, and tells her stories that he hopes will reveal something of himself to her. She, in turn, is trapped in something of a cage, and since her marriage has had to give up the life of hunting she enjoyed with her own people for a privileged and seamlessly dull existence.
She is struck by his honest tales, and replies with some of her own, which the storyteller finds challenge his ideals and his arrogant image of himself.
This is a delicate, complex weave of a book, with essentially two narratives intricately ticking within each other like a tiny, complex clock.
There is little of a strictly travel nature here, but if you want to know a country there are few better places to start than its stories, and these have all the feel of a classic Indian narrative, with the layers of hardship and heartbreak separated by slivers of fairytale, romance and exquisite imagery.
This is a deft novella that barely manages more than 100 pages, but it is terrifically effective and has a haunting impact that lingers long in the mind.
lmackin@irishtimes.com