Sharon Rundle
Paperback 2022
Relatively True, Stories of Truth, Deception, Post-Truth from the Indian Subcontinent and Australia
Edited by Meenakshi Bharat & Sharon Rundle
Orient BlackSwan, India, 2022
Relatively True is a vibrant collection of short stories that reflects on the porous boundaries separating lies half-truths, and the truth. We live in a world of elastic truth, click-bait, disinformation and fake identities. Opinions, beliefs and conspiracy theories clamour to be given equal time and weight with facts. Whose truth is more relevant and more meaningful—yours or mine? The stories in Relatively True confront and address this question, and more, in surprising and inventive ways. Each narrative probes the vexing impact that fluctuating ideas of truth have on us. From self-deception to trickery on a wider scale, this anthology of short fiction from Australia and South Asia enchants, provokes and enlightens, from the first story to the last.
Orient BlackSwan, publisher.
Meenakshi and Sharon are thrilled to include stories on the theme of Truth, Deception and Post-Truth written by Shirley Hazzard, Eugen Bacon, Gulzar, Meenakshi Bharat, Alex Cothren, Tony Birch, Devika Brendon, Sharon Rundle, Cate Kennedy, Anne Benjamin, Sujata Sankranti, Kate Grenville, Priya Sarrukai Chabria, Andrew Kwong, Mitra Phukan, Bashabi Fraser, Yasmine Gooneratne, Rashida Murphy, Sunil Badami, Niharika Chibber Joe, Matt Lupton, Susanne Gervay, Janhavi Acharekar, Gayatri Gill, and Julia Prendergast. A Proem by Roanna Gonsalves addresses the theme, putting the stories in a wider context and gives an overview that shows how the stories complement and question the theme. In the Foreword, His Excellency, The Australian High Commissioner to India, The Honourable Mr Barry O’Farrell AO writes that the story collection gives a valuable window into cultures and lives, an understanding as it were of each other’s truth.
This fifth collection of stories in the series of Indo-Pacific literature follows Glass Walls: Stories of Tolerance and Intolerance (2019), Only Connect (2016), Alien Shores (2014), and Fear Factor Terror Incognito (2009 and 2010).
Relatively True is available at https://sharonrundle.com.au where you can buy direct or access the links to New Edition Book Shop Fremantle, Book Depository, Blackwell’s, Browns Books, ABE Books, or Publisher: Orient BlackSwan.
E-books at Apple Books at https://books.apple.com/us/book/relatively-true/id6443119885
Kindle e-book edition is available for sale on Amazon Australia: https://www.amazon.com.au/dp/B0B7WGLPQP
Bionote:
Sharon Rundle, Institute of Professional Editors; Chair, UTS Writers’ Alumni. Co-editor of five anthologies of short fiction from Australia and South Asia. Her stories, essays and articles appear in books, anthologies, journals and magazines including: Confluence UK, Claiming Space: Australian Women Writers, Transnational Literature, Southerly, Indo-Australian Relations: Retrospective and Prospective, Encounters Modern Australian Short Stories. She encourages international people to people links while nurturing new writing. She has taught at universities in Australia, the UK and India.
sharon.p.rundle@gmail.com
Website: https://sharonrundle.com.au