Fable is a literary genre defined as a succinct fictional story, in prose or verse, that features animals, legendary creatures, plants, inanimate objects, or forces of nature that are anthropomorphized, and that illustrates or leads to a particular moral lesson, which may at the end be added explicitly as a concise maxim or saying.
A fairy tale is a short story that belongs to the folklore genre. Such stories typically feature magic, enchantments, and mythical or fanciful beings. In most cultures, there is no clear line separating myth from folk or fairy tale; all these together form the literature of preliterate societies. Fairy tales may be distinguished from other folk narratives such as legends and explicit moral tales, including beast fables. Prevalent elements include dragons, dwarfs, elves, fairies, pixies, giants, gnomes, goblins, griffins, merfolk, monsters, talking animals, trolls, unicorns, witches, wizards, magic, and enchantments.
Lakshmibai Newalkar, the Rani of Jhansi, was the Maharani consort of the princely state of Jhansi in Maratha Empire from 1843 to 1853 by marriage to Maharaja Gangadhar Rao Newalkar. She was one of the leading figures in the Indian Rebellion of 1857, who became a national hero and symbol of resistance to the British rule in India for Indian nationalists.
The Panchatantra is an ancient Indian collection of interrelated animal fables in Sanskrit verse and prose, arranged within a frame story. The surviving work is dated to about 200 BCE, but the fables are likely much more ancient. The text's author is unknown, but it has been attributed to Vishnu Sharma in some recensions and Vasubhaga in others, both of which may be fictitious pen names. It is likely a Hindu text, and based on older oral traditions with "animal fables that are as old as we are able to imagine".
The folklore of India encompasses the folklore of the nation of India and the Indian subcontinent. India is an ethnically and religiously diverse country. Given this diversity, it is difficult to generalize the vast folklore of India as a unit.
Hitopadesha is an Indian text in the Sanskrit language consisting of fables with both animal and human characters. It incorporates maxims, worldly wisdom and advice on political affairs in simple, elegant language, and the work has been widely translated.
Kuldip Nayar was an Indian journalist, syndicated columnist, human rights activist, author and former High Commissioner of India to the United Kingdom noted for his long career as a left-wing political commentator. He was also nominated as a member of the upper house of the Indian Parliament in 1997.
Thakurmar Jhuli is a collection of Bengali folk tales and fairy tales. The author Dakshinaranjan Mitra Majumder collected some folktales of Bengali and published some of them under the name of "Thakurmar Jhuli" in 1907. The Nobel-Laureate, Rabindranath Tagore wrote the introduction to the anthology. Since then, it has become iconic in Bengali children's literature, becoming a household name in West Bengal and Bangladesh over the years.
The Heart of a Monkey is a Swahili fairy tale collected by Edward Steere in Swahili Tales. Andrew Lang included it in The Lilac Fairy Book. It is Aarne-Thompson 91.
The Tiger, the Brahmin and the Jackal is a popular Indian folklore with a long history and many variants. The earliest record of the folklore was included in the Panchatantra, which dates the story between 200 BCE and 300 CE.
Karadi Tales is an independent children's publishing house based in Chennai, India focusing primarily on picture books and audiobooks. It was started in 1996 with an intent to create a space for Indian culture in the world of children's publishing, by a group of writers, educators and musicians. Since its launch, Karadi Tales titles have been consistently one of the largest selling publications in India. Many titles have sold more than 100,000 copies and most titles have crossed 20,000 copies. The audiobooks are narrated by a roster of celebrities and set to classical Indian ragas which are performed by trained musicians.
Aditya Narayan Dhairyasheel Haksar is a well known translator of Sanskrit classics into English. Born in Gwalior, central India, he is a graduate of The Doon School, Allahabad University and Oxford University. He was a career diplomat, serving as Indian High Commissioner to Kenya and the Seychelles, Minister in the United States, Ambassador to Portugal and Yugoslavia, and he also served as Dean of India's Foreign Service Institute and President of the U.N. Environment Programme's Governing Council.
Margaret Read MacDonald is an American storyteller, folklorist, and award-winning children's book author. She has published more than 65 books, of stories and about storytelling, which have been translated into many languages. She has performed internationally as a storyteller, is considered a "master storyteller", and has been dubbed a "grand dame of storytelling". She focuses on creating "tellable" folktale renditions, which enable readers to share folktales with children easily. MacDonald has been a member of the board of the National Storytelling Network and president of the Children's Folklore Section of the American Folklore Society.
Khyrunnisa A. is an Indian author of children's fiction, speaker, academic and columnist who also writes for adults. She created the comic book character 'Butterfingers'. The character first appeared in the Indian children's magazine Tinkle. Thirteen-year-old Amar Kishen, aka Butterfingers, now features in the eponymous Butterfingers series of novels and short story collections published by Puffin, the children's imprint of Penguin Random House India.
Deepti Menon is an Indian author. She is the author of Arms and the Woman and Shadow in the Mirror. She was also the contributing author of Crossed and Knotted, which made it to the Limca Book of Records.
Rohini Chowdhury is a children's writer and literary translator. Her published writing for children is in both Hindi and English, and includes translations, novels, short stories, and non-fiction. Her children's books and short stories have been shortlisted for awards, including the Hindu Young World Goodbooks Non-fiction Award and the New Writer Prose and Poetry Competition, 2001, UK.
Jungle Tales is an Indian animated television series produced by Moving Pictures Company India. It is an adaptation of stories from the Panchatantra and it was the first indigenous 3D animation programming on the small screen. It premiered on 6 November 2004 on Cartoon Network.
Shobhanasundari Mukhopadhyay was an Indian writer, known for her collections of folktales. She was the daughter of Hemendranath Tagore and the niece of writer Rabindranath Tagore.
The Boy with a Moon on his Forehead is a Bengali folktale collected by Maive Stokes and Lal Behari Day.
Vinitha Ramchandani is an Indian author of over 25 books tailored for children and young adults, spanning genre fiction, non-fiction, and picture books. Notably, her book Sera Learns to Fly won the Best Children's Book of the Year award at the FICCI Publishing Awards in 2019, while Lost and Found in a Mumbai Koliwada received multiple award nominations in 2020. Also her children's picture-book Ammu and the Sparrows gained recognition by being listed on the Parag Honour List and receiving the prestigious Neev Literature Award in 2021. Four of her stories have been integrated into the curricula of educational boards such as CBSE and ICSE.
