Kakanadan, one of the most celebrated authors in Malayalam (language of Kerala), is now accessible to English readers for the first time through this collection of 14 short stories spanning his career.
Blue Eclipse is a collection of fourteen stories spanning Kakanadan’s career that let us catch a glimpse of the brilliance of one of the flagbearers of modernist Malayalam literature.
If ‘Blue Eclipse’ is an untrammelled exploration of surreal ideas, ‘Timeworn’ is a simple tale of nostalgia that takes shape on a retired school teacher’s last day of life. Through an artist torn between his search for enlightenment and the magic of his model’s physical beauty, ‘Sreechakram’ reflects on the Hindu philosophies of dualism and non-duality, while ‘Madness’ and ‘Sunshine’ talk about sex and the power of women in completely different circumstances. At once powerful and beautiful, morose and terrifying, liberating and suffocating, this is a collection to savour.
The collection includes a write up by author M Mukundan on Kakanadan and his contribution to Malayalam literature, and an interview with Kakanadan by A K Abdul Hakkeem translated from Malayalam.
Known for their bold and powerful yet poetic language, George Varghese Kakanadan’s (1935-2011) works are considered landmarks in modernist Malayalam literature.
The book is published by HarperCollins Publishers India and translated by Rishi Kakanadan
