A Fine Thread and other stories: Short stories

A Fine Thread and Other Stories is a collection of sixteen translated stories originally written in Tamil by the acclaimed author Jeyamohan. Each story explores rich and intriguing territories, ranging from art's place in spirituality through the dreamy, incredible account of a young monk's search for atonement for his ancestors' curse in 'Shadow Crow', to the ruthless questions thrown at Mahatma Gandhi's integrity and rectitude in 'A Fine Thread'.

This collection presents characters in the midst of their personal and global quandaries: we meet two American reporters, who find themselves at the threshold of the Great Russian revolution and the construction of socialism; an obsessed engineer who tries to decipher the conversation of the mountains; a dreamy, native youth who discovers tranquillity in nature; a young girl in search of meaning and exhilaration in this wonder called life.

Compellingly narrated, beautifully crafted, and packed with a density of ideas, these stories provide an unflinching glimpse into the kaleidoscopic fictional world of a major Tamil writer of our times

B. JEYAMOHAN (b. 1962), based in Nagercoil, Tamil Nadu, is a pre-eminent writer in modern Tamil literature. His most significant work yet is a twenty-six part romanfleuve called Venmurasu (The White Drum), a reimagination of the Mahabharata. Spanning more than twenty-five thousand pages in print, it is among the longest literary works in the world. Apart from other landmark novels such as Vishnupuram (1997) and Kotravai (2005), his body of work includes more than three hundred short stories, many volumes of literary criticism, biographies, travelogues, introductory texts to Indian and Western literature as well as essays on heritage and philosophy. He has received many honours, including the Akilan Memorial Prize for his first novel, and the Katha Samman, the Sanskrit Samman and the Iyal Award (Canada). He can be found at https: //www.jeyamohan.in/

JEGADEESH KUMAR writes fiction in English and Tamil, and translates between Tamil and English. His own work and work in translation have appeared in The Prometheus Dreaming, Indian Periodical, Defunct, Spillwords, The Piker Press, Impspired, and elsewhere. A Fine Thread and Other Stories is his first full-length translated work to be published. Jegadeesh lives in Walterboro, SC, United States of America.