Current Issue

I’m moved to these thoughts because it’s August 15th, and as I write these words, the nation celebrates its independence day. Our cover for Issue 61 reflects the self-confidence and optimism which led to independence, and that too by measures which refused, until at the very end at least, to inflict self-injury upon injury. It is true that in the grand scheme of world events, of great finance and great politics and great science, a literary magazine is a nothing. It can seem like much effort for nothing. And yet, it is precisely these little, allegedly-unread nothings which relentlessly embody the truth that the considered experience is also a freeing experience. Every issue of a literary magazine announces independence day. And that is no small thing.

The question then is who is going to do this consideration. You are! Our authors have lived their bit of the tale, now it is your task to plot the arrow’s course. There are about forty contributions in Issue 61. We have, as always, poems, stories, translations, graphic fictions, and visual narratives. But this time, we have also started a new “vertical”: essays. We recruited them by two methods: the first set was via an open call and the second was via invitation. The curated set— which we call “Explorations”— had a slightly different goal in mind: the aim is to explore the protean possibilities ever-present in narrative; in short, challenge the reader. If you liked them all on the first read, we would be pleased, naturally, but also a little disappointed. Read, feel, burn, consider, write, and then come set others free.

Welcome to Issue 61 of The Bombay Literary Magazine.