Catagory: Fiction

‘Kalki’ R. Krishnamurthy, one of the pioneering giants of the Tamil press in the tumultuous times of the nationalist movement, was a versatile and prolific writer, inscribing the urgencies of his time in his fiction. This collection brings together the best of Kalki’s short stories, which contain some of his most colourful and enduring characters and themes of Tamil popular fiction of the nineteen thirties and forties. There is in these stories the heady urgency of the freedom struggle, the piquant humour of the parodied Tamil gothic and devastating social satire. In her sensitive translations, Gowri Ramnarayan has succeeded in capturing the nuances of the gently mordant wit that made Kalki’s stories the highlight of the magazines they were originally published in, creating for themselves a dedicated following that flourishes undiminished to this day.
Coinciding with the centenary of Kalki’s birth, this volume is a well-deserved tribute to a writer whose breadth of vision and genius imagined and served a new India.

A compelling tale of mystery, passion and spiritual exploration seventy-year-old Shastri; A reciter of Harikatha, encounters an Ayyappa pilgrim on a train. Around the pilgrim’s neck is a Sri chakra amulet which looks like one that belonged to Saroja, Shastri’s first wife. But Shastri thought he had killed Saroja years before, believing she was pregnant by another man. If the amulet is Saroja’s, then she might have survived, and the pilgrim (Dinakar, a television star) could be Shastri’s son. A similar story is revealed when Dinakar visits his old friend Narayan: either could be the father of Prasad, A young man destined for spiritual attainment. The interwoven lives of three generations play out variations on the same themes. Whose son am I? Whose father am I? Where are my roots? These mysteries of the past and present are explored, but there are no clear answers. And while significant in daily being , such questions lose urgency in the flux of becoming (Bhava means both being and becoming). So we are led to consider that Samsara-the world of illusion and embodiment-may not be very different from Sunya , the emptiness from which everything arises. At times a drama of cruelty and lust, at times a lyrical meditation on love and transformation, Bhava is an exceptional novel by one of India’s most celebrated writers. Translated from the Kannada by Judith Kroll with the author.

The new novel from the bestselling author of That Long Silence The narrator in The Binding Vine is the clever, sharp-tongued Urmi, grieving over the death of her baby daughter and surrounded by, but rebuffing, the care of her mother and her childhood friend, Vanaa. Instead, she becomes caught up in the discovery of her long-dead mother-in-law’s poetry, written when she was a young woman subjected to rape in her marriage; and in Kalpana, a young woman hanging between life and death in a hospital ward, also the victim of rape. Yet, in this web of loss and despair are the glimmerings of hope. Shashi Deshpande explores with acuity and compassion the redemptive powers of love.

Lush and beautiful, Cinnamon Gardens is a story of intertwined lives in the gracious world of Ceylon in the 1920s In a novel of exceptional achievement, Shyam Selvadurai evokes the life of the upper classes of Colombo’s wealthy suburb, Cinnamon Gardens, at a time when the power of colonial rule in the country is shifting. It tells the story of Annalukshmi, a young schoolteacher, who finds herself caught between her family’s pressures to marry and her own desire for a more independent life; a life she sees reflected in her mentor, Miss Lawton, a progressive headmistress. She comes to realize that this life is fraught with complexities and danger and with rules that cannot be broken. There is also Balendran, the obedient son of a domineering patriarch, whose story is brilliantly counterpointed with that of his niece Annalukshmi’s. He leads a comfortable existence with his wife Sonia till he learns that Richard Howland is to arrive in Colombo. This uneasy reunion with a lover from the past throws Balendran into turmoil and re-ignites tensions with his father. As the narrative unfolds and deepens a varied cast of characters emerge, including Louisa, Annalukshmi’s mother who, in the face of a failed marriage, struggles to raise her daughters alone; Arul, Balendran’s exiled brother; and the delightfully high-strung and meddlesome Philomena Barnett. Selvadurai’s sensual descriptions and keen insights take us behind the fragrant gardens and polished surfaces to reveal a world of splintered families, conflicted passions and lives destroyed by class hatred. With this novel, the author confirms his earlier promise as one of Sri Lanka’s most distinctive and talented new voices.

A selection of the most enjoyable and popular short stories from India. Best Loved Indian Stories brings together tales from different parts of the country that have enthralled readers of all ages. This volume, the first of two, represents the best English stories written by Indians in the twentieth century. In these twenty stories you will meet unforgettable characters like the inimitable Muni with his two goats in R.K. Narayan’s classic ‘A Horse and Two Goats’, the pious Vishnu in Khushwant Singh’s ‘The Mark of Vishnu’, the innocent basket-seller with the enchanting eyes in Ruskin Bond’s unforgettable ‘Night Train at Deoli’, the dying grandmother with her eccentric demands in Githa Hariharan’s ‘Remains of the Feast’ and many other men and women who have touched our lives over the generations. The authors included in this volume are: Anjana Appachana Anita Desai Attia Hosain Bharati Mukherjee Githa Hariharan K.A. Abbas Keki N. Daruwalla Khushwant Singh Manjula Padmanabhan Manoj Das Manohar Malgonkar Mulk Raj Anand Nayantara Sahgal Nergis Dalai Padma Hejrnadi R.K. Narayan Raja Rao Ruskin Bond Santha Rarna Rau Shashi Deshpande.