[Joshua Grasso]

If you enjoy Mansfield's stories as well as Chekhov's, I would recommend my favorite short story writer, and one of my favorite writers in general, the Indian novelist (South Asian, that is), R.K. Narayan. He has a wonderful collection of stories in the Penguin Classics series entitled "Malgudi Days," which complies stories from throughout his career. They are all pithy, insightful, and often comic depictions of the fictional small town of Malgudi in Southern India. They often deal with tricksters, con men, artists, musicians, the downtrodden, and in general, the struggle between East and West in the middle of the 20th century.

His most famous story, perhaps, is "Lawley Road," about an old statue of a British functionary named Frederic Lawley that stands in the town square. No one remembers what he did or why they built a statue to him. After independence, they decided to remove all trace of Britain and pull it down, and the main character, known as the "Talkative Man," hauls it off to his house to sell it. Then they realize that Lawley was a local hero, who helped the lot of the common man and died trying to save people from a flood. So they want the statue back...but the Talkative Man refuses--it's HIS statue. And so comedy ensues. He has a great style and is profoundly 'human' writer, in that he rarely takes sides and watches with detached compassion and amusement. I highly recommend this volume.