Author: Dilip Kumar
Editor(s): Dilip Kumar / Vasantha Surya
Publisher: Penguin
Year: 2004
Language: English
Pages: 277
ISBN/UPC (if available): 0143031597
Description
Innumerable strands of ethnic, regional and universal experiences are woven together in this collection of fine short fiction spanning four decades - 1960-1990-in which the short story emerged as the definitive genre of modern Tamil literature. Twenty-nine famous names are represented here-from Rajanarayanan to Paavannan and many others who have encapsulated the joys, sorrows, and peculiar challenges of life in Tamil Nadu.
Taken together, these stories represent a certain world view in which old ideas of honour and prestige, and the attitude of resignation-to fate and to social hierarchies-are yielding place to an ethic of struggle and strategic compromise. The language itself is transformed in the process, churning up a new idiom that loses none of its freshness or vitality in translation.
REVIEWS
Perfect Tamil flavour, Dilip Kumar's is a perceptive collection that records nearly half a century's Tamil social history, Vasantha Surya has kept close to the rhythms of the original.
-Prema Nandakumar, Deccan Herald
From the introspective to the funny, from the absurd to the tragic, this book has everything.
-Gita Krishnankutty, Hindu
TRANSLATOR
VASANTHA SURYA'S translations from Tamil include R Chudamani's novel, Her translations of short stories have been anthologized in A Southern Harvest (Katha, 1993). She has published three books of poetry: the Ballad of Budhni, a transcription of a narrative poem from Bundeli Hindi; and two collections of poems in English, The Stalk of Time, which was shortlisted for the Commonwealth Poetry Prize, and A Word Between US (Sandhya Publications, 2004).
Contents
EDITOR'S NOE
A Matter of Adjistment: A Note from the Translator
The Chair
The Rat
The Daughter-in-law's Vote
Temple Bull, Plough Ox
The Plastic God-Box
The Real Self
Fantasy
City
All is Shiva
Curry Leaf
The Neighbour
The Escort
The Gloom Train
The Slaying of Hiranya
A Cup of Coffee
A Place of Live
The Man in the Terylene Shirt
Jasmine
The Bonds of the Day
One of This Nation's Monarchs
Daktaramma's Room
The Chariot Comes to Rest
Beast
The Frount
Time Out
Crooked Shapes
Afternoon
Pipe and Ceremony
The Solution
Glossary