Parthiban Kanavu (Parthiban's Dream) was a novel Kalki R. Krishnamurthy penned as a weekly serial beginning 1941 in Kalki, the magazine that he had founded. Written in simple and elegant prose, Parthiban Kanavu is a breezy fictional historical romance in which good triumphs over evil and the lovers overcome obstacles posed by dynastic affiliations, intrigue and separation to be united in matrimony. The novel was an instant hit and was made into a Tamil film starring Gemini Ganesan, Vyjayanthimala and S.V. Ranga Rao in 1960. Parthiban Kanavu is an important milestone in Kalki's illustrious literary career. It offered tantalizing perspectives of his literary style and what would be his more critically acclaimed works that followed. Vivid descriptions of nature, flora and fauna formed memorable backdrops against which Kalki's gripping plots unfolded. While the stories he told were timeless ones of valour, romance and hope, his characters never conformed to the binaries of good and evil, instead portraying the various shades of grey and ambiguities that encapsulate what it means to be human. Kalki's characters communicated his unequivocal views on politics and war. That religion and politics are an undesirable and combustible combination, that the adverse impact of wars on the environment and civilians far outweighs the political gains, and that civilians ought not to be harassed when a war is under way - are recurring themes.
Meeran's Stories give us a glimpse, at once, of the inner life of two entities, two identities. First, of South India. Second of Muslim South India. They are about a particular people but more, they are about people. They are about a particular place but more, about the place of feeling in the desert of custom.
'The Scent of Happiness could describe Vatsala too. Resilience, positivity, and laughter - these are the words that come to my mind when I think of Vatsala. Hers has been a life of deep troughs, just like the protagonist of this story. The scent of happiness pervades this story as it pervades Vatsala's spirit. Like the manoranjitham flower, the Ananda inside us may turn shades as we live, but it will always be fragrant.'Justice PRABHA SRIDEVAN (Retd), Writer and Translator'When women begin to examine and represent their lives critically and with honesty, many an untruth starts to crumble. In order to prevent this crumbling, society hands them the burdensome responsibility of preserving family honour, thus forcing them into silence. The journey of Prema in Vatsala's novel The Scent of Happiness acts like a beacon of hope and light for such women.'A. ARULMOZHI, Advocate, Feminist and Social Activist
What happens to the woman who is loved, used and discarded because of her caste? Will a Vice Chancellor give in to the political pressures of a minister, when both of them are Dalits? What happens to a man destined to live in stench all his life? Whose victory is it - that of the Dalit boy who plays the tappeta or the landlord who wins the election? Does one have the right to decide on another's life no matter how beholden he is? What is the relationship between sub-castes among Dalits? Will the exploitation of the poor Dalit continue? What is the bond between the bull and the Dalit who tends it?These are only some questions these twelve stories raise. Drawing on the material from his life, Enoch jolts us out of our complacency to ponder over the questions of caste, class and gender; of love, friendship, power games, exploitation and politics. His characters infuse self-confidence and a sense of pride in their work and culture. In their incessant struggle, they strive to survive equally with others.Through the title story, Enoch brings out the relationship between the Ganga, the revered river and the water in the well of the 'untouchable'.
T. Janakiraman is one of the most accomplished writers in modern Tamil literature. His fiction continues to unravel fresh meanings for contemporary readers. His sensitive writing explores the complexities of the human mind and human emotions, and the ways they clash with societal norms and traditions, leading to violations and crossing of boundaries set by the society. He traces the immense suffering and mental agony that his characters undergo as a result of these clashes. Janakiraman's women characters are sensitive, intelligent and intellectual, capable of determined action. Fascinated by the live portrayal of his characters, his readers have travelled to the towns and streets which these characters have inhabited, verily like pilgrims. It is rare to find in modern literature characters of classic quality. But many characters of Janakiraman have such a quality and are cherishedin the hearts of the readers. Set in Marudam, as the fertile Thanjavur delta region with its own landscapes and lifestyles was known, his style of writing, with exquisite dialogues, wordplay and vivid descriptions, is absorbing. The Crimson Hibiscus, like his other fiction, also absorbs and engulfs the reader. Time itself celebrates an artist of his calibre!PERUMAL MURUGAN, WriterThis intimate portrait of a family, told through the eyes of the youngest of three brothers, Sattanaathan, brings to life the everyday negotiations, heartbreaks and joys that make up domestic life. The story unfolds in the richly described context of semi-rural Tamil Nadu of the first half of the 20th century, and explores the complexity of filial and conjugal relationships in a joint family. T. Janakiraman's work is for many decades a staple in Tamil literary magazines. The translation and editing is expertly done, losing neither the character nor the nuance of the culture and language of the original.USHA RAMAN, Writer and Academic
A luminous account of jail from the pen of a sensitive young woman who draws deeply moving sketches of women who sometimes do not even know why they are in prison. Anuradha's stories move from children who are born in prison, with no idea of the world outside their walls - not even knowing what the moon looks like except on television - to old women bent with age serving life sentences and longing for release before they die so that they can die at home. But jail life is also throbbing with humanity in the midst of trauma and sadness. Women share their pain, write petitions for each other, discover histories of the jail where the staff recall other inmates who are incarcerated for their conscience, and unexpectedly the jail library has a copy of one such memoir. The same jack fruit tree bears witness to those who come and sit under its shade and then move to others who come in and may even die in jail before they are released. Every year on 26 January and then on August 15, they wait with bated breath to hear of who is released on those days. Will their names figure, or will they have to wait another year for the mercy of the state to return home, in spite of being a world where there is no place for the many women who cross the line of the law even as they stand up to the torment of caste and gender violence. Anuradha is the scribe in the jail, who tells stories of women and children who are victims of a cruel and inhuman world, and the unexpected legacies of kindness, solidarity and courage - women who sustain a spirit of resistance against the cruel norms in the world outside and in the way the law works. Long after we have finished reading the stories, we stay with Lathi Budhiya; with Paro's daughters outside the jail and her cats inside the jail; with baby Chandini's discovery of the moon on the night of Holi because lock up time has been extended as a special concession to the festivities.This is a poignant book about a world we need to know and think about: a world that presses against conventional boundaries and is just beyond the prison walls, not so far from us at all.UMA CHAKRAVARTI, Feminist Historian and Filmmaker
Sathyavathi's stories are powerful, deeply sensitive and widely varied in their themes, most of her writings concern women - their lives and living, dreams and disappointments, losses and achievements. She is a keen observer and shares her anguish about today's human life and living with us through her stories in urban and rural settings.
The river, the sand, the rains and the floods blend with the characters in the novel, even as Madhavan subtly hints at the need for caution when exploiting the bounties of nature. Like the gentle flow of a river, the novel portrays the contradictions humans negotiate with nature as they uphold aesthetic values of what is beautiful and what is not.
Gangadhar Gadgil represents the "New Short Story" era by being a pioneer in bringing about fresh literary awareness into Marathi literature of the time. His style is deceptively simple, which at times turns satirical . . . Keerti moves fluently in both languages with a creative mind; she can hear the inner voice of a writer.
These stories are intricately woven with threads of imagination and interpretation, which allow us to live that particular life in that particular moment in the given landscape that is extremely strange and intensely familiar at the same time. An accomplished storyteller masterly transforms his regional experience into universal aesthetics.
M. Mukundan has been called the 'Writer of Mayyazhi' and some of his best-known works have as their background, Mayyazhi, that small area in Kerala which is still French at heart. And yet he spent a large part of his life in Delhi and a number of his powerful works are set in that place and speak of its people. Haridwaril Manikal Muzhangunnu came out in 1972 to loud acclaim and louder criticism. It spoke to the alienated youth of the late 1960s and early 1970s; and the criticism was because it seemed to glorify the use of drugs and a way of life that was considered immoral then. With Ramesh and Suja, we travel to ancient Haridwar where the Ganga came to earth, where the marks made by Bhageeratha's chariot wheels can still be seen and Bhima's sweat can still be tasted in the water of the pond dug by him. Ramesh finds himself unable to resist the call of the bells of Haridwar.The other two novellas take us back to Mayyazhi, the small piece of land where time has stood still for decades. Both the stories speak of the man of rectitude face to face with his baser instincts, his natural instincts. Meetheledath Ravunni is led astray by the sight of the girdle that encircles Savitri's slim waist and descends to an animal-like existence. As for Kunhikrishnan Thampuran, the honeyed skin of the oil-miller's wife reduces him finally to an innocence that is child-like, unselfconscious.
Sethu is easily one of the best contemporary story-tellers in Malayalam. At a time when stories have begun to vanish from narratives growing abstract or turning into superficial experiments with local idiom, Sethu continues to engage the readers with tales that often seem like fables, stories that you can hardly put down.- K. SATCHIDANANDAN
Tender, sharp and bold, these stories light up the dark corners of the human mind. Though placed in a definite milieu, these are stories any reader can identify with. The translator has provided an elegant bridge over which she takes the reader from the original Marathi to English.-SHASHI DESHPAND
Recalling the productive yet rhetorical overreach of protests that women's groups have organized over the decades against violent acts directed at women, Githanjali's brisk prose veers between the melodramatic and the sentimental. Yet the psychological truth that violent acts convey in all their inchoateness is never obscured.
Aaram Viral, a novel [Malayatoor] published three years before his death in 1997, has now found a good English translation. The Sixth Finger, portraying 1970s-80s south India, reads all the more relevant today, when the country has its burgeoning babas effectively competing with Hindu gods in number.
In this anthology of short stories, delicately crafted, poignant, often charmingly funny, Appadurai Muttulingam summons from the sweep of global forces the intimate realities of human relationships. The author's voice is that of a true storyteller in the classic sense: insightful, tragic and yet funny - and quite hilarious at times.
Joshi's fiction is animated by his extraordinary sensitivity to the uncanny and inexplicable dimensions of experience that underlie and sometimes infiltrate our lives governed by routines. He has an admirable gift for portraying normality as it begins to slide by degrees towards chaos, without raising the emotional temperature of his prose.
Avadhoot Dongare is a young promising Marathi novelist. He was awarded the Sahitya Akademi Yuva Puraskar, 2014, for Svatahala Faltu Samjanyachi Goshta (The Story of Being Useless). He has a phenomenally different way of telling a story. Once he starts telling the story, he moves out of the picture. The characters start behaving independently.
R. Chudamani's style of writing is not loud and proclamatory. Her stories are about sensitive people, especially women, struggling in unspoken ways or with minimal ways of revealing their inner selves, to retain their sensitivity in today's world of gender violence, caste discrimination and elite arrogance.
Hiremath's works describe the lives of different communities of Bagalkote, their struggles, different skills they have, vocations they pursue and their language and customs. Neither the localized environment nor the language seems to have imposed any restrictions on Hiremath's narratives. They become functional and cease to be ornamental.
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