Transgression and Other Stories: Sahitya Akademi Award-Winning Odia Short Stories

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Transgression and Other Stories is the English translation of Pratibha Ray's Sahitya Akademi award winning collection of short stories in Odia, Ullanghan. Published in 1998, this collection of short stories was awarded in the year 2000. The stories are "noted for the deft handling of human frailties with compassion and a unique world-view. The author has succeeded in maintaining a fine balance between the literary and the colloquial. Her observations on human nature, on moments of man's transgression of moral limits, are poignantly put down in an effective blend of detachment and empathy". Pratibha's literary journey commenced when she was a student of Standard VI, only 11 years of age. It is from her parents that she has imbibed the "boldness, revolt and humanism" that characterize her literature. In her writing she vouches for a "social order based on equality without class, caste, religion, or sex discrimination".

Padma Bhushan Pratibha Ray (b. 1943) is an acclaimed writer of novels, short- stories, travelogues, children's literature, and many more genres. A former professor of Education and member of Odisha Public Service Commission, Ray stands foremost among the women fiction writers writing in Odia. Her rich literary oeuvre includes 23 novels, 26 collections of short stories, 10 travelogues besides a large body of poems, essays, plays among others. 'Issues of contemporary relevance, oppressive surrounding, overpowering tension of modem life, corruption, and degeneration of values find an apt treatment in her works. For her immense creative talent, she has been awarded with Odisha Sahitya Akademi and Sahitya Akademi awards, Sarala Puraskar, Moorti Devi Award, Jnanpith Award, Atibadi Jagannath Das Puraskar, the last two being the highest literary awards in India and Odisha respectively. The present text is a translation of her Sahitya Akademi Award winning.collection of short stories entitled Ullanghan.