Sutra & Other Stories

These six vibrant stories by Iranian novelist Daneshvar (Savushun) chronicle the vicissitudes of life-its horror, unfairness, humor and fleeting beauty. There is the domestic tragedy of ``A City Like Paradise,'' which tells of a black servant cudgeled and thrown out by her employer, who is jealous of her bonds with household members; the tart comedy of ``Anis,'' about a woman who, as she shuttles from one husband to the next, swings from subservience to fervid religiosity to urbane sophistication; the social commentary of ``Potshards,'' describing a patronizing, elderly white woman's impromptu attempt to adopt a village orphan. Born in 1921, Daneshvar portrays a world full of injustices and cruel surprises redeemed by hope and acts of kindness, such as a midwife's clandestine visit to save the life of an ungrateful pregnant woman (``Childbirth''). In the exuberant, virtuoso title story, a sea captain born in Madras, shipwrecked off Africa, recalls his smuggling exploits, his life in the Persian Gulf and the wife and daughter he forced into prostitution and then abandoned; half-delirious, he undergoes an exorcism to free himself of possession by a mermaid and then dictates his vision of a world free from tyranny and sorrow. (Oct.)