A long time ago, a young prince, the heir to a great South Asian kingdom, wielded Siva's mighty bow and won the heart of a young princess.

The story of what happened next to the married couple, the epic tale of the Ramayana, told and re-told countless times over the centuries, begins where most stories end. The twenty-five stories in Breaking the Bow take a similar courageous leap into the unknown. Inspired by the Ramayana and its cultural importance, the anthology dares to imagine new worlds.

Here you will find magic realist and surreal stories. Robot and cyberpunk stories. Fantasy and science fiction stories. Hard-to-classify stories. Authors include some of the best writers in contemporary South Asian fiction -- including Abha Dawesar, Priya Sarukkai Chabria, Tabish Khair, Kuzhali Manickavel, Mary Anne Mohanraj and Manjula Padmanabhan -- from India, Sri Lanka and Thailand, as well as Holland, Israel, the United Kingdom and the United States.

Breaking the Bow is a collection of brilliant, original and beautifully told stories, guaranteed to enlighten and entertain.