t took nearly five minutes for her ashes to cool down. Afterwards, someone held out a handful. �Here she is, your Lara. Take her.� The agony stuck within me like an iceberg for one thousand days shattered without warning and drowned me in a flood of tears.

A man sits before his wife lying comatose in a refrigerated chamber and tells her the thoughts he had never dared express when she was conscious; �When the Gods Left� follows Rajula Dip, a carrion-picker, as he goes about his business and himself becomes carrion; in �Fragments�, a woman takes a bus to her rapist�s house to speak to him and to his family; God himself appears in court to give testimony in a case where justice has been miscarried; and in �The Hunt�, after a tiger kills a shepherd, the entire village turns on the victim�s family in revenge.

One Thousand Days in a Refrigerator includes fourteen stories of great power and beauty, startling in their variety and ambition. It showcases a writer at the very peak of his considerable abilities.