55 Words

The art of creating a complete short story in exactly 55 words. Anushree Nande’s collection 55 Words (Underground Voices, October 2015) contains 46 stories compiled into an entertaining and fast read.

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Reviews

"Ms Nande’s beautifully composed vignettes creep into your imagination like seeds, where they blossom into a rich forest of full-blown stories. She captures moments, snatches of memories, and turns them over gently with her delicate prose; she runs her fingers over them, tracing the edges of pain, grief and loss; then she twists them in the light, and they shimmer and sparkle with joy and delight."

"Anu Nande has done something which, so far as I know, has never been attempted before – write a series of short stories, each only 55 words long. Elegiac, joyful, nostalgic, yearning, no matter: each subject gets equal treatment, like ‘a brief promise of a lost fairytale’. Glimpses, fragments, miniatures, cumulatively, a portrait of a life."

"Vivid Miniature Word Paintings. These microfiction stories are exquisite miniatures-using artfully chosen words like splashes of paint. Most of them deal with everyday life, creating a vividness that reminds us to cherish the moment. The author's words involve all the senses: we see colors, hear voices or noise, smell rich scents, taste foods, and feel textures. These stories are literally mini-masterpieces. "

"A beautiful collection of short stories which contains great depth and facilitates multiple readings to allow oneself to discover all the intricacies and subtleties in her work. With themes ranging from the pure elation of childhood innocence and joy which elicit true nostalgia to the heavy themes and choices one must make and confront as one gets older and a wide variety in between, the collection of stories can resonate with a diverse audience and connect to a plethora of personalities and interests. It requires a great amount of detail and an astute touch to be able to bring about so much depth in so few words and she does so masterfully. I am looking forward to future works she produces."

"Ms. Nande effortlessly blends poetry, memoir, and flash fiction into a series of compelling and poignant vignettes - each of them unique; each emotional; and each with an acute sense of time's inevitable passing and, therefore, the beauty found within a moment. A quick read that surprises with the emotional depths it reaches in only 55 words per story. Each story comes to life so vividly straight off the page that you'll lose track and read the whole book before you've even put it down. Highly recommended for fans of microfiction, creative nonfiction, free verse, and travel writing. "

"Fifty-five words, immeasurable solace. Each little story here paints a picture so vivid that the reader is left with the unusual yet delightful aftertaste of a dollop of countless emotions and some distant memories of one’s own. The impeccable imagery at times allows you to delve into the snug feeling left behind by something as simple as turning a page of an old book."