The Artist of Disappearance, By Anita Desai

Set in modern India, Desai's three linked novellas deal with the notion of death and decay.

The opening story, "The Museum of Final Journeys", is narrated by a young bureaucrat who discovers a "preposterous collection" of oriental treasures left to rot in a remote rural spot.

In the waspish story, "Translator, Translated", an older woman blows her one chance of professional success; while the title story features a reclusive loner absorbed in a strange artistic endeavour. Desai's elegiac tales manage to be at once mysterious and matter- of-fact.