On the eve of Independence Day, Mahesh reads a small news item about a mysterious forest dweller who appeared in the middle of a rainforest out of nowhere and disappeared without leaving a clue. Immediately, he recognizes the man to be Freddie Robert, their friend, guide, leader and the one they had all named Yudhishtira, who had disappeared into the forest several months ago, in search of a rare new bird. Mahesh and his four friends, each named after a Pandava brother, and Panchali, or Meera, decide that the only way they can ascertain whether the man was indeed Freddie is by returning to the forest and searching for him.
Thus begins Dattapaharam, a powerhouse of a novel by the critically acclaimed and bestselling Malayalam author V.J. James. A rumination on solitude, man's connection with nature and the strings that attach us to this world, this is a surreal novel where the author's imagination soars like an eagle and words flow like the untouched springs in a rainforest. At times a fable on the modern world, at times a story about man's quest for identity, and on the whole a moving tale that takes the reader deep into the forests to understand what really makes us human, Dattapaharam is a powerful novel for our anthropocentric age, written by one of the most exciting voices to emerge from the Indian subcontinent.
V.J. JAMES writes in Malayalam. Born and brought up in Changanacherry, Kerala, he currently resides in Thiruvananthapuram. An engineer by profession, he worked at the Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre. His debut novel, Purappadinte Pusthakam (The Book of Exodus), was awarded the DC Silver Jubilee Award, Malayattoor Prize and Rotary Literary Award. Other awards include the O.V. Vijayan Award and Thikkurissi Award for Anti-Clock; and the Thoppil Ravi Award, Kerala Bhasha Institute Award, Kerala Sahitya Akademi Award, Basheer Puraskaram and Vayalar Award for Nireeswaran. The English translation of Chorashasthram was shortlisted for the Atta Galatta-Bangalore Literature Festival Book Prize. The English translation of Anti-Clock was shortlisted for the JCB Prize for Literature 2021 and longlisted for the PFC-VOW Book Award 2022.
MINISTHY S. is an IAS officer working in the Uttar Pradesh cadre. She translates between three languages: English, Malayalam and Hindi. Her translation of The Poison of Love by Malayalam novelist K.R. Meera was longlisted for the DSC Prize for South Asian Literature 2017, and The Unseeing Idol of Light, by the same author, was shortlisted for the Crossword Book Jury Awards in 2018. Her translation of Anti-Clock was shortlisted for the JCB Prize for Literature 2021. She has further translated the Sundar Kanda, Kishkindha Kanda and Aranya Kanda from Awadhi into English, and the poetry collections My Home, After Me by Agyeya from the Hindi and The Heaviness of the Rain by Veerankutty from the Malayalam.
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