Category: Murugan Perumal

#InternationalBooker2023: Pyre by Perumal Murugan (tr. Aniruddhan Vasudevan)

Now I’m moving on to the first novel translated from Tamil to receive an International Booker nod. The last book of Perumal Murugan’s that I read was the fable-like The Story of a Goat. Pyre takes more of a realist tone, yet still has heightened aspects of its own. 

The novel begins with a couple, Saroja and Kumaresan, getting off the bus:

Beyond the tamarind trees that lined the road, all they could see were vast expanses of arid land. There were no houses anywhere in sight. With each searing gust of wind, the white summer heat spread over everything as if white saris had been flung across the sky. There was not a soul on the road. Even the birds were silent. Just an action dryness, singed by the heat, hung in the air. Saroja hesitated to venture into that inhospitable space.

translation from tamil by Aniruddhan Vasudevan

Straight away, we have a vivid sense of place, and the feeling that all is not going to be well. Saroja and Kumaresan met and fell in love in her home town, where Kumaresan had gone for work. Now married, they have come to live in his village. The problem is, they are of different castes. 

Whenever anyone asks about Saroja’s caste, Kumaresan tries to deflect attention by saying she’s of the same caste as him and everyone else in the village. But this is not enough: questions and gossip persist, and haunt the narrative. Murugan never actually specifies whether Saroja is of a higher or lower caste, which is one of the little touches that, for me, contributes to a heightened atmosphere. Murugan builds up the tension over where this will go, to a striking ending. 

Book published by Pushkin Press.

Click here to read my other posts on the 2023 International Booker Prize.

Pushkin Press: The Story of a Goat by Perumal Murugan

In a village that has seen little rain for years, an old farming couple are given a black goat kid by a mysterious stranger, a giant figure who seems to have at least one foot in the world of myth. They name the kid Poonachi and raise her to adulthood. Poonachi doesn’t quite fit in, which leads to some difficulties – for example, she’s a different colour from the couple’s nanny goat, so it takes some ingenuity to get her registered with the authorities.

Poonachi’s life is eventful, has its ups and downs analogous to a human’s, and she springs to life as a character in her own right. The Story of a Goat becomes a fable of society, difference and acceptance. The measured tone of Murugal’s prose (in N. Kalyan Raman’s translation from Tamil) draws you in, and the end result is an affecting tale. 

Published by Pushkin Press.

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