A Tale of Things Timeless

A one-line suicide note left by a total stranger - small-time writer Avinash Suvarna - first intrigues and then reveals to young journalist Laya Thomas what it means to experience fear and abandon at once. It stirs her smouldering spirit and brings her face to face with the mysteries of living and the travails of creating one's masterpiece.

The story of Avinash's life holds the answers to Laya's existential dilemmas. For Avinash was someone who walked out on Time, struggling to reconcile his writing with his life and with the ugly realities around him.

Laya must understand Avinash in order to rediscover herself. It is through Laya that he will be resurrected and rendered timeless.

Following Laya Thomas and Avinash Suvarna on their intensely imaginative journeys, A Tale of Things Timeless is a deeply philosophical novel about the trials of a writer and the unexpected extraordinariness of things mundane.

Rizio Yohannan Raj has written two novels in Malayalam - Avinasom and Yatrikom. She has translated into English many generations of 20th century Malayalam writers, from Kumaran Asan to Anwar Ali, and was a long-time associate of the Indo-Swedish translation project. Her poetry collections include Eunuch and Naked by the Sabarmati and Other Guna Poems.