New Delhi, Dec 23 Taking a cue from the continuing demand for short novels like John Steinbeck's "Of Mice and Men" and Franz Kafka's "Metamorphosis" more than five decades after their publication, the Tranquebar Press has launched a new short fiction —novella — series.

The series was launched on Monday with a cache of four novellas - the "Nalanda Chronicles" by Kalpish Ratna, "Happy Associate" by Urja, "Peacock in the Chicken Run" by Dawood Ali McCallum and "The Beast" by Syed Muhammed Ashraf.

"The Nalanda Chronicles" by Kalpish Ratna is a darkly comic look at how life scatters during an urban terror assault while "Happy Associate" is a pulp fiction about a girl's quest for identity and self-respect. "Peacock in the Chicken Run" is a document of the diverse shades of life seen at London's Heathrow airport. "The Beast" by Syed Mohammed Ashraf is a fictional fable of the troubled times woven around a murder mystery.

"The idea was to come out with titles that were relatively short, entertaining that would be light reads — across subjects. We also wanted to price them cheap and package them in such a way so that they would be convenient for people to carry when they are travelling or commuting. Apart from this, a lot of authors like to write short fiction, but cannot place them because of this impression that short stories and novellas do not sell. We wanted to encourage the genres and writers," Tranquebar Press senior commissioning editor Deepthi Talwar said.

"The Beast has been translated from Urdu by a Pakistani, based in Canada, and Dawood Ali McCallum ("Peacock in the Chicken Run") is British," Talwar said.

The series will have four titles a year. The word count will vary between 20,000 and 40,000 words.

The books are priced at Rs.150.

Talwar said there was an impression that short fictions do not find takers. "But some of our collections of short fictions like Mridula Koshy's 'If It is Sweet' and Aseem Kaul's 'Etudes' did well. We cannot generalise that short fictions do not sell. What keeps the reader hooked is a good story well told. Moreover, I think it is probably difficult to tell a story and build characters when the word count is restricted," Talwar said.