The Bombay Literary Magazine’s mission is to publish fine literature from around the world and promote a writerly perspective on narratives. We publish fiction, poetry, translations, essays, photo-essays, and graphic fiction in the months of April, August and December. Our current issue is Issue 62 (December 2025). We will start accepting submissions for Issue 63 (April 2026) from January 01 through January 31, 2026.
Welcome to The Bombay Literary Magazine.
Issue 62 Cover: Wassily Kandinsky. Comets (1938). Image courtesy of the James Smith Pierce Collection, University of North Dakota.
Banner image: Oval Room, Bibliothèque nationale de France | Richelieu, Paris, France. Salle Ovale © Guillaume Murat / BnF. The Oval Room is free of charge and open to anyone with a pulse. As if this weren’t civilised enough, the library also hosts a 9,000-volume collection of comics from all over the world.
A Box of Chocolates
The Bombay Literary Magazine has been curating literature since 2013. That is a lot of content. An excess of choice usually leads to discontentment however. After much thought and earlier missteps, we concluded the best way to give you a sense of the kind of literature(s) we have published over the years is to adopt Forrest Gump’s philosophy: Life is like a box of chocolates and you never know what you’re going to get. Here then is a box of chocolates. The stories, poems, translations, essays, graphic fiction and visual narratives (five of each) have been randomly selected from our archives. Reload the page and you should get a different box. Thanks for visiting, friend. Browse, read, share at will.
Fiction | Rats
Uko
Fiction | Banana Bag Lady
Meera Ganapathi
Fiction | The Dream Girls
M. C. Schmidt
Fiction | Death In Etawah
Afreen Akhtar
Fiction | Vatsalyam
Ranjini Nair
Poetry | ‘All that is left is storytelling’ & Other Poems
Khansa Kubra
Poetry | ‘Division, Spring’ & Other Poems
Hannah Marshall
Poetry | ‘The Unknown Corporate Citizen’ & Other Poems
Sandip Baidya
Poetry | ‘The Weight of a Sack of Rice’ & Other Poems
Ion Corcos
Poetry | ‘The End of Self-Help’ & Other Poems
Nathan Lipps
Poetry | ‘Duck-Hunting with Uncle Stephen’ & Other Poems
Feby Joseph
Translated Fiction | Fish Swim, Birds Fly
Terézia Mora
Translated Fiction | A Shiny New Toy
Anil Yadav
Translated Fiction | A Confession To A Murder
Mojaffor Hossain
Translated Fiction | The Fairy
Rashida Sultana
Translated Fiction | The Fairy
Rashida Sultana
Translated Fiction | The Salt Inspector
Premchand
Translated Fiction | A Bikeless Hero
Manaswini Lata Ravindra
Translated Poetry | ‘Himalayas Are Dalit’: A Poem
Mohan Mukt
Translated Poetry | ‘The head of an imaginary bird’ and Other Poems
Avraham Chalfi
Translated Poetry | ‘Himalayas Are Dalit’: A Poem
Mohan Mukt
Translated Poetry | Five Ghazals
Hamdam Kashmiri
Translated Poetry | Five Ghazals
Hamdam Kashmiri
Translated Poetry | ‘Last Apple’ & Other Poems
Yu Xiuhua
Translated Poetry | Four Poems and a Conversation
Prabhat
Visual Narrative | Way of the Wa: In Harmony with Japan
Soumya Mukerji
Visual Narrative | Spoken Word City: Bombay
Shadab Khan
Visual Narrative | Spoken Word City: Bombay
Shadab Khan
Visual Narrative | The Photographer Looks Twice
Zahra Amiruddin
Visual Narrative | Way of the Wa: In Harmony with Japan
Soumya Mukerji
Graphic Fiction | Ganga
Abiral Kumar && Mainak Mitra
Graphic Fiction | The Red Moon
Madhusree Basu
Graphic Fiction | Outgrowth
Ishani Ahmed Saikia
Essay | A Poet-Shopkeeper
Kopal Agarwal
Essay | The Fully Celebrated Ravings Of A Skeptical Immigrant
Kapil Kachru
Essay | The Interrogation Of A Hill
Monona Wali
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