Ludmila Volná. Abstracts. Rashid Khalifa, the storyteller, loses his wonderful ability to make up and tell stories when his wife Sorya leaves him for the snivel Mr Sengupta, a man who has always complained to Haroun and his mother about the uselessness of storytelling. Children's fiction the stories. When Soraya runs off with Mr. Sengupta, Rashid loses the Gift of the Gab and turns from his usually happy, imaginative, story-filled self into a sad and self-pitying manthe stories. Haroun, the only