SOURCE: Malak, Amin. “The Shahrazadic Tradition: Rohinton Mistry's Such a Long Journey and the Art of Storytelling.” Journal of Commonwealth Literature 28, no. 2 (1993): 108-18.

In the following essay, Malak focuses on Mistry's storytelling techniques, likening them to the Shahrazadic tradition, which he believes Mistry has subtly melded with the Western style of narrative.

While in Mistry's first book, the collection of short stories entitled Tales from Firozsha Baag (1987), the three finest and most exciting pieces switch between Bombay and Toronto, the narrative in his second book, the novel Such a Long Journey (1991), is set entirely in India.¹ Lengthier, more assuredly detailed and variant, Such a Long Journey nevertheless shares numerous features with its predecessor, the most obvious being the imaginative depiction of residential complexes (Firozsha Baag and Khodadad Building respectively), inhabited mostly by middle-class Parsis. The Parsis are a tiny but vibrant Bombay community whose religious and ethnic roots...