The artist of disappearance is a set of three novellas about life in the hinterlands of modern day India. There’s a steady emotional tone throughout, of desolation and isolation, of grandeur descending into ruin. We meet a government official who is serving as a low level functionary when he is asked to handle a marvelous museum that lacks resources to maintain itself. Then there’s the story of an academic who specializes in an obscure regional language, tasked with translating a book she loves into English. And finally we have the tale of a scion of a wealthy merchant family who retreats to a clearing in the wilderness following a calamitous fire.

The stories are engaging and eye opening, though also a bit disorienting. The characters are interesting and sympathetic, with the exception of the hermit - his monotonic attitude gets boring quickly. I enjoyed the middle story the most, partially because I have a sympathy for obscure languages. Beyond personal sympathies, it’s also a fascinating meditation on language, agency, and the nature of art. It dives into the problems of subtlety in words, double meaning, and misunderstanding in a way that I’ve only rarely seen, and I appreciate that quite a bit. For this story, the setting of a modern India in transition, coping with tremendous ethnic and linguistic diversity, seems the perfect choice. The conclusion falls a little flat, like the other endings, but that didn’t bother me so much.

This collection is a great look at life in modern India, although it is a little bleak at times. The second novella is undoubtedly worth a read.