Description

In this collection of short stories, Abha Iyengar brings us stories of fragmented and marginalised lives, and the struggle for survival that constitutes most of human existence. The stories speak of power structures continuously navigated by the vulnerable in the hope to give their lives some meaning. There is a blend of myth and sexuality in her explorations of women’s lives and their sense of selfhood. These stories rivet us with their graceful prose and raw, visceral insights.

Weaves gothic, literary and hard-boiled into emotionally-charged tales of love, loss, suffering, and justice. From lusty patriarchs to indigent puppeteers trying another shot at life, these are stories of human resilience and courage which slip in and out of the everyday to venture into realms of darkness and the unknown. Venom and vengeance, fantasy and the forbidden, laughter and tears, propel these captivating narratives towards their memorable denouements, which are satisfying, unpredictable and ever so poignant. — Rajat Chaudhuri

Abha Iyengar’s stories are stories of women, the kind who are special precisely because they are ordinary. They tell us of women who are denied, thwarted, betrayed and abused and yet are not bitter. Flawed, duplicitous, secretive, self-focussed, yes, but never bitter. These women play the cards they’ve been dealt; and therein lies their attractiveness as characters, transparent in their motivations and complex in their actions. — Anukrti Upadhyay

Simple yet twisted, luminous yet dark, the gendered tales here are like silent fireworks going off in the night sky. Hiding inside the gently clenched fist of each short story is a knock-out punch. — Palash Krishna Mehrotra

Abha Iyengar is an award-winning, internationally published writer, editor, translator and a British Council certified creative writing mentor. She is the author of the short story collection, The Gourd Seller and Other Stories and the flash fiction collections, Flash Bites and The Full Platter. She has co-curated a short story collection The Other and curated and edited two flash fiction collections, Kintsugi and Skin.  Her stories have been published in The Best Asian Speculative Fiction and The Best Asian Crime Fiction anthologies and innumerable literary journals. She was a Featured Poet at Poetry with Prakriti. She received the Lavanya Sankaran Writing Fellowship for the Sangam House residency. Her poem-film, Parwaz (Flight), won a Special Jury prize in Patras, Greece. She is the founder of Creative Wings Studio and has eight published books to her credit.

Follow her on FB, X and Instagram: @abhaiyengar

Website: www.abhaiyengar.com

Reviews

Malati Mukherjee in The Book Review

Abha Iyengar’s stories in Big Daddy’s Chair move with deceptive simplicity, yet strike with astonishing force. Her characters inhabit the edges of society—women who appear ordinary at first glance, men wrestling with failure or desire, families fractured by silence—but Iyengar imbues each life with a startling vividness. These are people negotiating power, dignity, and survival in worlds that are often indifferent or hostile, and yet they carry within them an unexpected resilience. … What sets Iyengar’s storytelling apart is the way she blends the familiar with the unusual. Everyday moments slip almost effortlessly into darker, more mysterious spaces; realism mixes with myth, fantasy, and psychological depth in ways that feel both unsettling and deeply human. Her stories unfold gently, almost softly, before delivering endings that stay with the reader—not because they aim to shock, but because they reveal truths we didn’t expect to find.

KS Loganathan in Aishwariya’s LittLog

Chaotic_productivity on her blog

The quantity of words does not define the content of the literature. These stories prove this statement spot on. … An anthology of short stories interweaving emotion with existence , longing with suffering. Presenting stories from the POV of women , these tales portray the evident and hidden struggle of being a woman. From fantasy to courage , the stories touch a wide range of female persistence and resilience.