Publisher Description
From the author of One Part Woman and The Story of a Goat, both longlisted for the National Book Award for Translation, comes a poignant and startling novel about love, caste, and intolerance
Profiled in both the New Yorker and the New York Times, Perumal Murugan is one of India’s highest selling and most respected literary writers, and Pyre is perhaps his most beloved work. Saroja and Kumaresan are young and in love. After meeting in a small southern Indian town where Kumaresan works at a soda bottling shop, they quickly marry before returning to Kumaresan’s family village, where they hope to build a happy life together. But they are harboring a terrible secret: Saroja is from a different caste than Kumaresan, and if the villagers find out, they will both be in grave danger. Faced with venom from her mother-in-law and questions from her new neighbors, Saroja tries to adjust to a new lonely and uncomfortable life, while Kumaresan struggles to scrape together enough money for them to start over somewhere new. Will their love keep them safe in a world filled with thorns? In evocative prose, Perumal Murugan masterfully conjures a moving tale of innocent young love pitted against chilling violence.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Murugan (The Story of a Goat) delivers a powerful fable of star-crossed lovers and societal intolerance. Kumaresan, a young man from an isolated village in southern India, works as a deliveryman in a larger town, where he meets and marries Saroja, a leather worker's daughter. After he brings her to his village, his widowed mother and the rest of the community are outraged that the bride is of a different caste and complexion. Hounded mercilessly, Saroja cowers in her hut and discovers she's pregnant just as the village council decides to excommunicate the family unless her caste is revealed. Murugan describes rural life in piercing detail, making the everyday toil and inner lives of humble people the backdrop to the unfolding drama of escalating threats from Kumaresan's relatives and neighbors. The simple, elegant prose of Vasudevan's translation ranges from poetic ("The day slowly leaned over and fell to the west") to suspenseful as the hopeful innocence of young love bristles against tradition and Saroja faces increasing danger from the villagers. The author himself was censored in 2014 by government-affiliated activists in India and briefly gave up writing; thankfully, he has returned. Murugan deserves worldwide recognition.
