Rice and other stories(1947), Cages of freedom and other stories (1952), One Thousand Nights on a bed of Stones and Other Stories (1957), The Black sun and Other stories (1963), Men and women: Specially selected long and short stories(1977), The gun and other stories(1985) and An Evening in Lucknow(2011). Of these the last collection An Evening in Lucknow has been published posthumously, with an editorial note by Suresh Kohli who as an editor has also compiled some very significant interviews of Abbas with reputed magazines of the country. His last story “Mother and Child” based on Bhopal Gas Tragedy was published after his death in The Illustrated Weekly of India in June 1987.Mr. S.A. Rehman who worked with Abbas for more than twenty eight years as his secretarysaid that the title was initially different but was modified by the publishers.

The most famous of the stories of Abbas is “Sparrows” published initially in Urdu as Ababeel. “Sparrows”, written when Abbas was 26, was included in a West German anthology of the world’s best storiesThe story narrates the tale of a peasant boy Rahim Khan who has to suffer on account of the traditional and outdated notions of false pride in religion and family. He is not allowed to opt for the profession of his choice because “Job in a circus was too lowly for a respectable peasant” and to marry Radha, the daughter of the village Banya, a Kafir, was just out of question. This frustration hardens him into a cruel man who is beastly in