Along time ago, a young prince, the heir to a great South-Asian kingdom, wielded Siva’s mighty bow and won the heart of a brave princess. The story of what happened next to the married couple—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. Stories by some of the best writers in contemporary south-Asian fiction, including Abha Dawesar, Rana Dasgupta, Priya Sarukkai Chabria, Tabish Khair, Kuzhali Manickavel, Mary Anne Mohanraj and Manjula Padmanabhan. Stories from India, Sri Lanka and Thailand, but also Holland, Israel, the United Kingdom and the United States.