Mosquito and Other Stories

Ghana-da's bizarre narratives draw upon science, history and geography to conjure up exotic locales, other worlds and peoples, their habits, lifestyles and languages. Mosquito and Other Stories brings together twelve of Premendra Mitra’s most popular Ghana-da tales. These stories within stories, told in first person by one of the denizens of the mess hall, straddle the thin line between make-believe and truth. Ghana-da’s bizarre narratives draw upon science, history and geography to conjure up exotic locales, other worlds and peoples, their habits, lifestyles and languages. In ‘Mosquito’ Ghana-da saves mankind from a new and deadly breed of the insect; in ‘Pebble’ we find him trading in sandalwood in the New Hebrides; ‘Glass’ and ‘Duck’ explore nuclear science; in ‘Hole’ he tells his spellbound audience about the Fourth Dimension; and in ‘Hat’ he is dragged over Mount Everest by a runaway yeti. And that’s just the beginning. These accounts of travel and heroism, born of wild imagination and sound knowledge, make the teller and his tales simply irresistible.