I rarely get an opportunity to showcase some of the less
well known writers I enjoy, but as part of International Authors Day (which is
actually four days), arranged by Debdatta Dasgupta Sahay, I'll share some of
the authors I've found during my visits to South India. Several of these
writers are known in the United States, but I found the books noted here first
in India.
As a member of the Nehru family, Nayantara Sahgal was
expected to succeed in whatever she chose to do in life. She chose to write,
and has produced a number of novels and memoirs. My favorite is a short novel
titled MISTAKEN IDENTITY, set in 1929 about the son of a minor raja caught up
in the Quit India movement, arrested and carted off to prison.
The struggle for dignity and independence is explored by
another writer, Sarah Thomas. In DAIVAMAKKAL, or Children of God, a dalit woman
is determined to claim a better life for her son through education.
"Children of God" is the name Mahatma Gandhi gave to the Untouchables
of India, and Thomas succeeds in bringing the struggles and achievements of
this community to life through the story of Kunjikannan.
Sarah Joseph explores questions of faith in OTHAPPU, or The
Scent of the Other Side. The novel is a critique of Christianity and what the
author regards as the distorted forms it has taken in South India.
Thrity Umrigar captures the chasms that open between women
of different castes, no matter how closely intertwined their lives, in THE
SPACE BETWEEN US. In the rarefied world of the Bombay upper classes, Sera leans
on her maidservant, Bhima, a woman of no power who can do little to protect her
own family when the time comes.
Not nearly as well known in the United States as she should
be is Anita Nair. Her recent mystery, CUT LIKE WOUND, suggests a new direction
in her work. Inspector Borei Gowda is faced with the confounding deaths of a
number of young male prostitutes. Taking place in Bangalore over little more
than a month, the novel plays on all the tropes of crime fiction with a few
Indian twists added to the form. Nair's novel MISTRESS tells a love story through
the nine basic emotions of the traditional dance-drama art form called
Kathakali.
Another favorite writer for me and many others is Ruth Prawer
Jhabvala. Perhaps best known for her novel HEAT AND DUST and as a screenwriter
in a team with Ismail Merchant and James Ivory, Jhabvala wrote dozens of books,
essays, reviews, screenplays, and stories. I came across a collection in India,
A LOVESONG FOR INDIA: TALES FROM EAST AND WEST, with illustrations by her
architect husband C.S.H. Jhabvala. These stories have such perfect detail and
delicacy that I was convinced they were memoirs.
As part of the BlogHop for International Authors' Day I'm
giving away a paperback of the first novel in the Anita Ray series, UNDER THE
EYE OF KALI, to someone who comments, chosen at random.
