Anis Shivani is the author of ‘My Tranquil War and Other Poems’ (2012), ‘The Fifth Lash and Other Stories’ (2012), ‘Against the Workshop’ (2011), ‘Anatolia and Other Stories’ (2009), and the forthcoming novel ‘Karachi Raj’ (2013). Other books recently finished or in progress include two books of poetry; a novel; and two books of criticism, ‘Literature at the Global Crossroads and Plastic Realism: Neoliberal Discourse in the New American Novel’. Anis’s work appears in the ‘Boston Review’, ‘Threepenny Review’, ‘Iowa Review’, ‘London Magazine’, ‘Cambridge Quarterly’, ‘Times Literary Supplement’, and many other journals.

Editor’s Note: ‘The House on Bahadur Shah Zafar Road’ is reprinted from Anis Shivani’s collection ‘The Fifth Lash and Other Stories’ (C&R Press, 2012), with the kind permission of the author.