Notes of a Mediocre Man: Stories of India and America (130) (Essential Prose) - Softcover

Aurora, Bipin

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1771831413 ISBN 13: 9781771831413

Publisher: Guernica Editions, 2017

Synopsis

Two brothers come to school and do nothing but tell stories. A man goes to a singles dance. A retired man in India tries to collect his pension. A woman tells the story of her husband's death in partition India. An unnamed narrator offers his "notes" on modern-day America, the culture of success. Some of the stories are set in India, some in America. Some stories are fable-like, others more realistic. Some deal with sex, some are "intellectual" stories. But all stories deal, in one way or another, with small, "mediocre" people, people trying to fit into a world of bigness, applause, success.

About this title

About the Author:

Born in Delhi, India, Bipin Aurora came to the United States when he was nine and currently lives in Oakland. His fiction has appeared in numerous publications, including Michigan Quarterly Review, Southwest Review, Nimrod International Journal, and Grain.

Review:

"Magnetically readable, Notes of a Mediocre Man offers alternating views of America and India through the eyes of ordinary people -- children, workers, survivors, underdogs -- whose inner and outer worlds are realized in a brilliantly poignant, fable-like style reminiscent of Isaac Bashevis Singer's. Aurora speaks for common or "mediocre" humanity, buffeted by the brutalities and dreams of an unsettled global era; his immigrants recall Bharati Mukherjee's characters struggling with disillusion, while his Indians are as knowingly and lovingly depicted as R.K. Narayan's broad range of human types. Yet his style is unique: the signature voice of a storyteller who unerringly fits all local themes and affiliations within the compass of philosophical questions -- of good and evil, innocence and experience. A beautiful book that reads fast but lingers long in memory." — Sharona Muir, author of Invisible Beasts: Tales of the Animals that Go Unseen Among Us

About this edition

• Publisher: Guernica Editions
• Publication date: 2017
• ISBN 10: 1771831413
• ISBN 13: 9781771831413
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 336