India, Sept. 19 -- If you had to pick the best Tamil stories of our time, what would you include? Where, and when, would you begin? The idea is daunting, given the richness and vastness of Tamil literature. But Perundevi, who has edited this volume, does it remarkably well. Twenty-two handpicked short stories spanning three decades, several continents and countries, and many faiths, explore the idea, identity and experience of being Tamil. In her introduction, Perundevi writes that "a common thread that unites the stories... is their unflinching confrontation with life and truth, set against the shifting realities of the world outside of them." The shifting realities that underpin this collection are riveting. In The King's Way, Kanmani Gunasekaran (in a translation by N Kalyan Raman), writes about a single journey of therukoothu (street theatre) performers, carrying their "costume bundle, tin trunk filled with jewellery, mattalam blocks, harmonium box." They are booked for a programme, but have trouble getting a bus, a seat, space for their boxes, and by extension for their art. Gunasekaran sketches the artists magnificently, capturing their vulnerability. All night, the performers leap and roar "as kings endowed with all kinds of powers", but in the morning, they squat in the pyol eating "idlis made from sour batter with an excess of baking soda." And they console themselves by "turning the humiliation they suffered in the world into a joke before the audience." Some of the landscapes in the book will be familiar to Tamil readers: the towns and villages of the state. Some are fresh and unexpected: a prison in Canada, a casino in North America, a queue in Singapore. The diaspora stories challenge ideas of what and who is Tamil. For Reshma in The Horsewoman, a story by Ambai (translated by GJV Prasad) set in Mumbai, "all women from Tamil Nadu were Mami." In Latha's Cheenalatchumi's Queue (translated by Janani Kannan) the protagonist does not acknowledge her name, which stands for "Chinese Lakshmi". Is Tamil defined by language, geography or culture? The book includes stories by celebrated authors such as Ashokamitran, Perumal Murugan, Imayam and Jeyamohan, among others, and does a fine job of expand-ing that horizon. The translations are excellent, transporting dialect, idiom, caste, gender and custom elegantly from Tamil to English. Among the gems that Perundevi has picked are stories that explore gender. In Salma's Black Beads and Television (translated by Kalyan Raman), Zakiramma has agency, in. She sums up every movie she watches with a single word: "laddu." The story explores women, desire and leisure. Zakiramma trades her chain of gold beads, for instance, for plain black ones and buys a TV set. Other stories are equally honest, especially about the male gaze. In Sundara Ramaswamy's The Breaking of a Story (translated by Janani Kannan), a "real live damsel, a tantalizing beauty" appears magically at Sage Junction. And why is she special? "Her breasts, God almighty!.. Their eminence. Their ampleness." The crowd that gathers to ogle makes lurid comments. Reporters and photographers throng the scene. It's an indictment of the people, the crowds, the media. This is not new. But the ending certainly is: her breasts vanish from every single photo, just as she does, as suddenly as she appeared. Perhaps the best description of the texture of these stories is the term Perundevi uses: "a katambam - an assortment of fragrant flowers and leaves.". She notes that the authors "have strung together various subtler aspects of life skillfully onto this thread." They also bend stereotypes. In Shobashakthi's Uprising (translated by Janani Kannan), a superb take on migration and identity, all of Tharumalin-gam's longing for his faraway wife is delivered in two tender words: "endra rasa", Tamil for "my love". What's not to love about this book?...