"Games at Twilight", the title-story [in Anita Desai's collection of short stories,] is a jewel. It recounts something that has happened in one way or another to nearly everyone in childhood…. [The children] play hide-and-seek. Raki has an inspiration to hide in a dusty shed where no one will find him: and no one does. His exhilaration changes to anxiety as time passes, and he suddenly realizes that in any case success must be clinched by a final rush back to the "den". So he dashes out, to find that … no one has even noticed his absence.

It is simply and beautifully done; Mrs Desai is a writers' writer in that anyone who has ever set pen to paper must ask himself just what it is about the writing that makes the story so memorable, and there is, naturally, no simple answer to the question.

The other ten...