Ecstasy and Other Stories: Birth Centenary Edition - Hardcover

by Thi Janakiraman (Author)

STORIES THAT TOUCH YOUR HEART BY ONE OF THE BEST MODERN TAMIL WRITERS

Special Birth Centenary Edition

Thi. Janakiraman (ThiJa) was one of the best Tamil prose writers of the twentieth century. The stories in this specially curated collection offer a view of the modernizing Tamil countryside as well as the changing landscape of human relationships. A man builds his reputation based on lies to meet the expectations of his father, a woman desiring tenderness from her abusive husband finds release in an unexpected way, a music teacher is mocked for taking on a lower-caste student, and a drowning cat becomes the centre of attention during funerary rituals. In these and other tales, Janakiraman reaches inside the depths of the human heart and lays bare its contradictory pulls.

Through their brilliant translation, Professor David Shulman and the late S. Ramakrishnan reveal the 'perfect pitch' of Janakiraman's precise, exquisite Tamil. They deftly capture his fluid, sensitive style in idiomatic English, seamlessly rendering the subtle inflections of the original. Prof. Shulman's insightful and affecting introduction places Janakiraman within the long continuum of Tamil literature. There is also a short, beautiful memoir on him, written by his daughter Uma.

Author Biography

ThiJa or Thi. Janakiraman (1921-1982) was a central figure in the lively Tamil literary scene of the mid-twentieth century. Some would say he was the most gifted of all who were writing at that time. His descriptions of life in rural and small-town Tamil Nadu are almost without parallel. He published over a hundred exquisite short stories, nine novels, two novellas, four travelogues, and occasional essays on literary topics. In 1979 he won the Sahitya Akademi Award. David Shulman is Professor Emeritus at the Hebrew University, Jerusalem. He is a specialist in the languages, literatures, and cultures of southern India, and a highly respected cultural critic.