Word Worlds from South Asia: From Maharashtra to Bangladesh, from Afghanistan to Sri Lanka - this anthology brings together short stories and poems in eleven languages, as diverse in style and content as the subcontinent itself. Many of these works have been translated into German for the first time. For the twentieth anniversary of the Literature Forum India, renowned authors from across South Asia contributed their texts. The result is a colorful world of words, powerful, delicate, rebellious, melancholic - and always authentic.

In the narrative by Shivmurti, we learn how social mobility can be achieved while women and children remain destitute in the village, exposed to a fate of exploitation and abandonment. The short story by Shahin Akhtar also addresses rigid social structures and prejudices, focusing on the desperate search for a grave for a sister who worked as a prostitute.

But this volume does not only give voice to the darker side of South Asia. In the delightful poem by H. S. Shivaprakash, we not only read but also hear - crunch, crunch, crunch - the mouse nibbling at the mountain of books! And Kishwar Naheed even offers "A Recipe for Immortality: Come, let’s stir up a porridge against depression today!"

Some texts are also by authors living in Germany. Mariam Meetra writes about the longing for the lost place of her childhood, which lives on in her heart. The poems by Annakutty Valiamangalam K. Findeis speak of the struggle to break through language barriers - and the joy of finding access to foreign worlds through words. This is also the aim of the texts in this anthology: to open a window into a diverse, vibrant literary world.