Swimmer Among the Stars

'Do read this . . . I don't think I've ever read a collection which exuberantly spans such breadths of time and space.' Mark HaddonAn interview with the last speaker of a language.

A chronicle of the final seven days of a town that is about to be razed to the ground by an invading army.

The lonely voyage of an elephant from Kerala to a princess's palace in Morocco.

A fabled cook who flavours his food with precious stones.

A coterie of international diplomats trapped in near-Earth orbit. The stories in Swimmer Among the Stars reveal an extraordinary young storyteller in Kanishk Tharoor, whose tales emerge from a tradition that includes the creators of the Arabian Nights, Italo Calvino, Jorge Luis Borges, Angela Carter and other ancient and modern masters of the fable.