Swimmer Among the Stars

Kanishk Tharoor. Pan Macmillan. (256p) ISBN: 9781509822201

If you followed me on my old Twitter account you may have already realised that I love the short story format as a vehicle for delivering beautiful and compact prose, sometimes almost poetic, and Kanishk Tharoor’s debut collection, Swimmer Among the Stars, is one of the best examples of that I’ve read.

So apart from being a physically beautiful book, it is a book that also internally beautiful, exploring the human soul and their interactions across a dozen or so well-crafted stories.

The first story is so entrancing I’ve read it twice, and all the other stories deserve close reading they are so poetic in their understanding of the human condition. Some historic, some speculative, all the stories are strong and deserve their place in this book.

I usually dip in and out of short story collections but I had to read this in one go I was that fascinated.

A stunning collection and hopefully a good indicator of more to come.