Arguably India’s most imaginative modern fabulist, Suniti Namjoshi’s newest book is a response to a world in turmoil. Sprite, a fabulist from the future travels back in time to the sixth century to find out why and how Aesop, credited with some of literature’s most enduring fables, wrote. Isn’t it the duty of the writer to instigate a better world, she argues, even as the Greek slave barely succeeds in staying alive by making up his classic fables. A satirical meditation on authorial responsibility and morality, infused with Namjoshi’s trademark feminist twist to an often patriarchal literary tradition, this slim volume is a luminous work of fiction.