When Tulsi first meets Madhav, she is irrevocably drawn to his chiselled good looks and charm. Although wary of his many dalliances and the string of broken hearts left in his wake, she is surprised by the intense desire that Madhav arouses in her. And before long, she forsakes her family, her prospective career, her fiancé—all for the love of this inscrutable man. But love can be like poison. And nothing can prepare Tulsi for the heartache and betrayal that lie ahead.
Years later, Tulsi escapes to the ancient city of Vrindavan, seeking redemption amidst the cries and prayers of its anguished widows. However, when her past catches up with her, old wounds resurface with dramatic consequences.
‘Enthralling … disturbing … A book that resonates powerfully with some of our most primal impulses—a consuming love, a corrosive hatred, a need for vengeance’ Indian Express
‘Addictive … A masterpiece in miniature’ The Hindu Business Line
ALSO BY THE SAME AUTHOR
Hangwoman Translated by J. Devika
‘A contemporary masterpiece’—Mint
The Grddha Mullick family bursts with marvellous tales of hangmen and hangings in which they figure as eyewitnesses to the momentous events that have shaped the history of the subcontinent. When twenty-two-year-old Chetna Grddha Mullick is appointed the first woman executioner in India, assistant and successor to her father, her life explodes under the harsh lights of television cameras. When the day of the execution arrives, will she bring herself to take a life?
Meera’s spectacular imagination turns the story of Chetna’s life into an epic and perverse coming-of-age tale. The lurid pleasures of voyeurism and the punishing ironies of violence are kept in agile balance as the drama hurtles to its inevitable climax.
‘Meera weaves history, romance and the politics of the present together into a narrative of incredible complexity’—Caravan
‘Immense, intense … [with] chillingly clear-eyed vignettes … [and] moments of razor-sharp dark humour too’—India Today
‘One of the most extraordinary accomplishments in recent Indian fiction’—Indian Express
‘A daring book … Deliciously engrossing’—The Hindu
ALSO BY THE SAME AUTHOR
Yellow Is the Colour of Longing
Translated by J. Devika
Shortlisted for the Vodafone-Crossword Book
Award 2011
Two strangers meet in a hospital ward and are instantly drawn to each other. A heartbroken widow finds unexpected solace when she encounters two men in love. A father watches helplessly as the sensation-hungry media preys upon his young daughter in the wake of a sex scandal.
In Yellow Is the Colour of Longing, Meera’s astonishing range of narrative techniques is on full display. These defiant, ebullient stories lay bare the fault lines behind the façade of everyday life, sometimes with dark humour and sometimes with astoundingly bitter sadness. Devika’s sparkling translation expertly brings out the subtlety and nuance of Meera’s unique voice.
‘[Meera’s] stories cover an amazing range, and in each her idiom is inseparable from the plots and characters … Each story invokes the inner violence of contemporary society in Kerala’
Caravan
‘One of the most powerful voices in contemporary
Malayalam writing’
Mint
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PENGUIN BOOKS
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Penguin Books is part of the Penguin Random House group of companies whose addresses can be found at global.penguinrandomhouse.com.
First published by Penguin Group (Australia) 2014
This collection published 2017
Copyright © K.R. Meera 2016
Jacket images © Meena Rajasekaran
ISBN: 978-01-4342-90-29
This digital edition published in 2017.
e-ISBN: 978-93-8605-71-50
For sale in the Indian Subcontinent and Singapore only
This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.