The Greatest Malayalam Stories Ever Told is a collection of fifty brilliant short stories translated from the Malayalam. Selected and translated by poet, editor, and translator A. J. Thomas, this collection includes established masters such as Karoor Neelakanta Pillai, Vaikom Muhammad Basheer, Lalithambika Antharjanam, Ponkunnam Varkey, Thakazhi Sivasankara Pillai, S. K. Pottekkatt, Uroob, O. V. Vijayan, M. T. Vasudevan Nair, and Paul Zacharia, as well as accomplished new voices such as N. Prabhakaran, C. V. Balakrishnan, Aymanam John, Chandramathi, and others. ‘The Farmer’ by Thakazhi and ‘The Speaking Plough’ by Varkey deal with the trials and tribulations of village life. In Pilllai’s story ‘Wooden Dolls’ and Kesadeva’s ‘The Oath’, we encounter the seemingly simple, but intrinsically complex personalities of three rural women characters. In his classic story ‘The World-renowned Nose’, Basheer, the master satirist, resorts to biting satire to expose human vanity.