OXFORD NOVELLAS by Oxford University Press

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OXFORD NOVELL AS

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Diverse, intense, anguished, euphoric, elemental, and mellifluous— India narrates her stories in multiple languages. From the burning field of a drought-struck village in Andhra Pradesh to a village under severe threat of submersion in the Maland region of Karnataka; from the deep solitude in an apartment block in Bombay to the intense aggression on display in a bull-taming contest in the Ramanathapuram district in Tamil Nadu; from a Paranaki settlement by a river in Kerala to life in an old-age home in Calcutta, these stories are by authors and distinguished translators, closely attached to the roots of India. A bouquet of tiny gems, each story meticulously picked up, this new series ‘Oxford Novellas’ opens a window to the unfathomable phantom of India. The Oxford Novellas will grow over a period of time into an exclusive collection for your shelf and I sincerely hope you will enjoy reading them. Warm regards, Sugata Ghosh Director: Publishing – Academic & General Global Academic Publishing Oxford University Press sugata.ghosh@oup.com

SANIYA

REDDY

DEV SEN

MIRANDA

DWEEPA

TYANANTAR

MOOGAVANI PILLANAGROVI

SHEET SAHASIK HEMANTOLOK

JEEVICHIRIKKUNNAVARKKU VENDIYULLA OPPEES

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genre fiction, writers

old and new, this series

presents an orchestra of

Indic voices

Series editor Mini Krishnan

OXFORD NOVELL AS

D’SOUZA VAADIVAASAL

literature, popular and

CHELLAPA CHELLAPPA

Encompassing

Tamil

ISBN: 0198097476 9780198097471 Paperback

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Vaadivaasal Arena

‘Don’t let go of your hold, Picchi!’ Marudan yelled … Leaping up to a man’s height, the bull contracted its back in mid-air, tucked its head inward, let its hindquarters drop, and thus suspended, came down suddenly with great force, all four hooves slamming the ground. … Before he could find his footing, the bull had sprung up and leapt high again.

C.S. Chellappa was a writer and an eminent literary critic. He has short stories, poetry, plays, essays, and short novels to his credit. To realize his vision of Tamil literature, he founded the iconic little magazine, Ezhuthu, which he published for a decade.

Picchi and Marudan make their way to the bull-taming contest at the Chellaiyi festival at Periyapatti to redeem both memory and fear. They have a past to overcome. The local zameendar fields his unconquerable animal and, against all odds, Picchi jumps into the arena. As the Kaari turns to face him and Chellappa’s outstanding Tamil classic unfolds, the ground shakes and the page trembles. Picchi’s grip on the bull is just a breath behind the author’s grip on our imagination as the sport of jallikattu spins the reader in and out of the arena. Vaadivaasal,

N. Kalyan Raman is a translator of contemporary Tamil fiction and poetry. This is his sixth volume of Tamil fiction in English translation.

a masterful account of power relations, describes the traditional rituals of bull-taming and captures the life-and-death struggle between animal and man.

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Ka n n a

ISBN: 0198097441 9780198097440 Paperback

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Dweepa Island

Now the time had come for the village to drown. The Sharavathi had never come close to Hosamanehalli though she would roar ferociously from a distance during the monsoon. But she was now thinking of swallowing it up.… This was what Ganapayya noticed as he walked towards the house from the farm. … what would happen if the flood was stalled? … The warnings of the old man from the Submersion Office echoed in Ganapayya’s ears. As land wrestles unsuccessfully with water to save itself from being swallowed, everyone leaves except Ganapayya and his family. When the Sharavathi rises, it isn’t only snakes that enter the little farmhouse. Unknown to Ganapayya, his wife’s

Na. D’Souza has written forty-five novels including Manjina Kanu and Baman besides twenty-five novels for children. Many of his short stories and novels have been translated into Telugu, Malayalam, English, Tamil, Sanskrit, Hindi, and Konkani. Susheela Punitha retired as Professor of English, Mount Carmel College, and Centre for Postgraduate Studies, Seshadripuram College, Bangalore.

playmate from long ago finds a place in an otherwise happy marriage. Everyone and everything changes in the farmer’s life as the values and ways of the Malnad region disappear under the flood waters of the hydroelectric project in this first ‘displacement-novel’ presented in D’Souza’s unique style.

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Marat

ISBN: 019809745X 9780198097457 Paperback

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Tyanantar Thereafter

Because there is no equivalent for ‘love’ in Marathi…. Not affection, not lust, compassion, pity … feeling of love … I love you … I love my friend … I love him … I love her … I love my nation … I love god … I love beauty … I love this book … that colour … I love butterflies … batatawada … Bombay … bhelpuri … deep blue sea … Dilip Kumar … I love this … that … I love you more than him! One day, with no warning at all, Radhika’s husband Lalit

Saniya has ten volumes of short stories and three novels to her credit. She has won many literary awards, two of which are State-level prizes. Maya Pandit is Professor at the English and Foreign Languages University, Hyderabad, and is involved in teacher development projects.

leaves her. Not for another woman, but to find himself. Distraught at first and then angry, Radhika proceeds to rebuild her life and even steers it on her own terms. Saniya excels in creating an atmosphere which suffuses the novella with both sentiment and emotion that flows without break till the end of the narrative. There is a constant knitting of the past and present, building up, however, to a satirical resolution of sorts in the present.

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Telugu

ISBN: 0198097425 9780198097426 Paperback

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Moogavani Pillanagrovi Ballad of Ontillu Bakkireddy lay on his back, his palms beneath his head, staring at the wall-niche and the rolled up document in it. He found himself muttering, ‘This morning, selling my land at auction, I buried my father a second time.’ He half rose from the cot on his elbow with the intention of getting up and retrieving the scroll. But at that moment he heard a familiar

Kesava Reddy, a dermatologist by profession, has several published novellas to his credit. Basing the narrative on his own family history, he has authored as well as translated this novella.

sound in the loft of the cattle shed. Ancestral land was life and breath to Bakkireddy who sees his father’s corpse in the sale deed of his farmlands. As he loses grip on reality and finally sanity itself, his end takes on epic proportions. Bakkireddy’s history becomes myth and the novella strikes a chord as it brings to the fore the issue of farmer suicides. Known for his intense poignant novellas, Kesava Reddy continues the tradition as he captures the collective tragedy of rural India in this novella.

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k i s a h a S t Shee k o l o t n a Hem inter Defying W

HASIK SHEET SA HEMANTO

v Sen e D a t e e n a Nab

LOK OXFORD

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TRANSLA

TED FROM

oski Jain

ISBN: 0198097433 9780198097433 Paperback

UKHERJ TUTUN M Y B I L A G BEN

NOVELL

Illustarion: B

7433

DEV SEN

4 3 -3

B e n ga

19/07/13

4:08 PM

Sheet Sahasik Hemantolok Defying Winter

‘Can love-making be like gorging? No … Is that how the Bengali gentleman eats? Doesn’t he need the entire spread of panchabyanjan, all five flavours in his sumptuous meals? From the bitter to the sweet? Doesn’t he enjoy being fanned while he eats? And the box of paan at the end? Love-making’s like that.’ Women fight; they remember; they forget; in the twilight of their days they weep and curse their children and fellow lodgers in a shelter home. As they open up about the lives they lived and left behind, the closed world of relationships of women within their homes implodes on every page: anger, intolerance, and the inevitable unfolding of power at different stages

Nabaneeta Dev Sen is one of the most outstanding writers of our times. She has more than eighty publications in a variety of genres, comprising poetry, fiction, travelogues, plays, letters, memoirs, literary criticism, humour, and children’s literature. Tutun Mukherjee is Professor at the Centre for Comparative Literature, University of Hyderabad. She is a translator who has also edited translations from different Indian languages.

in a woman’s lifespan; the tension between different generations of women; and their dependence on men, both economic and emotional. Nabaneeta Dev Sen’s genius for retrieving the past is matched by the OXFORD NOVELL AS

wonderfully powerful lyric quality of this novella.

ku N AvA R k IRIkkuN JeevIch lA Oppees l veNDIyu

alam

u k k r a v a n n u k k i r i h c Jeevi s e e p p O a l Vendiyul the Living Requiem for

nda a r i M y n h o J

OXFORD

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jose bY sajai

Author and

ISBN: 0198097468 9780198097464 Paperback

am m a l aYa l m o r f d e r a n s l aT

NOVELL

by Illustration Boski Jain

97464

MIRANDA

7 4 6 -8

M a l ay

Jeevichirikkunnavarkku Vendiyulla Oppees Requiem for the Living Mammanji’s body lay there in the exact state it had been in when she was buried! Her face serene and beautiful, and still rosy-cheeked…! The long, shiny white robe she had been dressed in that day, the wreath on her head, the black cross in her hands; all of it intact. The flowers looked as if they had been freshly plucked and a fragrance flowed from the coffin. Josy Pereira, a young church sacristan, finds a key of gold in a freshly dug grave that once held a woman who died at childbirth.

Johny Miranda paints portraits and is a writer who lives in Kochi. He has published a collection of novellas. Sajai Jose works as a copywriter in Bangalore. Requiem for the Living is his first published work of translation.

It begins to haunt his waking life, and soon, his sleep. Is it in some way connected to a recurring dream he has, of a brutal celebration with echoes of animal—or is it human—sacrifice? The first Kochi-Creole work to appear in English, this novella is set in a community descended from the dependants of the Portuguese who had ruled the city four centuries ago. It is a world that revolves around the church and the locals’ own peculiar brand of faith—one where the vicar is permanently drunk, the sacristan steals from the offering-box, and sainthood is a reality that can be touched. A fresh sensitivity marks Johny Miranda’s fictional imagination. OXFORD NOVELL AS

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Aranyakand (Konkani) Author: Mahabaleshwar Sail Translator: Vidya Pai Aa Maratheyum Marannu Marannu Njan (Malayalam) Author: K.R Meera Translator: J. Devika Apeetha (Tamil) Author: La.Sa Ramamritham Translator: Padma Narayanan Sunnar Pande Kee Patoh (Hindi) Author: Amarkant Translator: Madhubala Joshi Kusumabale (Kannada) Author: Devanoora Mahadeva Translator: Susan Daniel