Shobhaa De to pen 'Lockdown Liaisons'

Author Shobhaa De will come out with weekly installments of short stories for the next month-and-a-half, trying to capture the fragile zeitgeist of the coronavirus pandemic in her own unique way. Simon & Schuster India will publish "Lockdown Liaisons" in a digital format.

"Living through the most precarious of times, what helps us retain our sanity and sangfroid is often just narratives - words from gifted writers who spin stories out of universal experiences, from thoughts and ideas half-formed in our minds," the publishing house said. "Shobhaa De is going to bring to us, for the next six weeks, stories that don't shy away from the tremulous uncertainties of the world as we know it but rather help us to confront and understand it all, just a little bit better," it added.

According to De, this is her way to respond to the "unprecedented, almost surrealistic global crisis caused by a bat". "The stories emerged organically as the nationwide lockdown compelled all of us to look beyond ourselves... our worlds... and seek coherence, often in the most absurd situations and scenarios," she said.