The choice of writers, the themes and the styles represented in this volume tell us something about Srinivas Rayaprol himself, about the mind of the creative writer-cum-translator at work. The selected texts cover a range of themes concerning man-woman relationships, women's desires, the plight of single women, the functioning of bureaucrats and politicians, among others. One cannot miss out on the preoccupation with death in many stories, nor can one ignore the ironic twist in the conclusions of some of them. The choices also seem to suggest an inclination for the unusual, rather than run-of-the-mill stories, both in terms of theme and style. The final selection of the stories seems to be purely personal. The order in which the stories have been presented too seems unique, for it defies chronology.
Son of Dr.Rayaprolu Subba Rao, the “father of modern Telugu poetry”, Srinivas Rayaprol carved for himself a literary identity of his own, his poems having been published in Indian and foreign magazines, including The Atlantic Monthly, Quest, and The Illustrated Weekly, as also in various anthologies. For the last few years until his untimely death in 1998, Rayaprol was engaged in translating Telugu poetry and short fiction into English. The writers Rayaprol chose for this collection of short stories cover a wide time span from the beginning to the latter half of the twentieth century. The selection and the ordering of the stories are his own, and he signs off the collection with a story of his creation, “Points of View”.