by Adele A Wilby
The translated versions from Tamil into English of Perumal Murugan’s two books, One Part Woman and the The Story of A Goat, weave stories of the complex life of the rural people of South India in an engaging and highly readable form.
Murugan’s use of imaginary language in both books effectively brings to life the rural context and lifestyle of poor farmers. Likewise, they are infused with subtle references to the caste system in India. But while the caste system is a crucial issue that warrants the scrutiny that it gets, it is but one theme in Murugan’s complex novels; they are, in effect, thematically layered narratives and they deal with the issues common to various degrees in most societies: the relationship between the individual and society and the state,the disciplining force of social norms and expectations and the extent to which religion plays a crucial role in the lives of the people. In doing so, Murugan creates a fiction that has, at its core, a human essence which makes his novels highly accessible and relatable.
In One Part Woman, Murugan explores the sad tale of a young couple, Kali and Poona, married for twelve years, and childless. By choosing this topic as his main theme, Murugan has hit on a sensitive issue and he examines it from many cultural perspectives. Read more »