Narayan (1940–2022)

Oxford University Press has (or had) a wonderful backlist of fiction by important (but virtually unknown in the USA) writers in various Indian languages. A month ago, for example, I read Gopinath Mohanty’s Paraja, a novel in Oriya about tribal lands in Orissa. This book is a Malayalam novel by an author said to be Kerala’s first “tribal novelist.” For anyone interested in such books, I’d urge you to look into this imprint. That said, this is an important work for many reasons but it’s not a great work of literature. It is a fascinating window into the culture, customs, and life of a particular tribe in the mountains of Kerala (in south India); the story line follows the decline and dissolution of a family after the death of the mother and the increasing dependence (and ultimate stranglehold) on the local moneylender. Unfortunately, the translation is not entirely fluent and the translator relies very heavily on retaining many local terms. Although words describing family relationships are quite important and help present the “feeling” of being there, some are footnoted, some are defined in a glossary, and some are never defined. It makes for very heavy going at times. The fascination of the community’s interpersonal ties and the substantial presence of local customs and the depiction of local life make for absorbing reading but pick this book up for those reasons, not because it’s a great literary achievement.… (mehr)