This is The Writer's Voice, new fiction from the New Yorker.

I'm Deborah Treisman Fiction Editor at the New Yorker.

On this week's episode of the writer's voice, we'll hear Akil Sharma read his story, The Naryants,

from the August 26, 2024 issue of the magazine.

Sharma is the author of the story Collection, A Life of Adventure and Delight,

and Two Novels, an obedient father which was published in 2000 and republished in a revised version in 2022 and Family Life for which he won the International

Dublin Literary Award in 2016.

Now here's Akiel Sharma.

The Narayans. Mrs Narayan was small, darkskinned oval-faced. She had a wonderful sing-song voice.

She'd come up to you at Temple on Holy or Diwali and offer congratulations so heartfelt you'd feel as if it were the first

time the day had ever been celebrated. We all liked her. She was an immigrant too, but she

didn't seem to have jangled nerves the way we did. She cooked for many of us and

regularly tried to refuse payment. This is from my side, she'd say. A horse can't be friends with

grass, we might answer.

Mr. Narayan, we didn't like.

He was short and squat.

He spoke roughly to his wife.

He owned a television repair shop and described himself as an engineer even though he hadn't finished high school.

Our kids would go over to his house to see his children and he'd play ping pong with them.

When he won, he'd grow about it. He got into stupid arguments with the kids over facts like the world's population.

If someone showed him an almanac that proved he was wrong, he'd grumble about the ignorance of American authors.

We'd see him smoking in his car in the driveway of the high school as he waited for his children,

...