Mole!
Ashokamitran, Translated by N. Kalyan Raman
Price
710
ISBN
9788125026822
Language
English
Pages
161
Format
Paperback
Dimensions
158 x 240 mm
Year of Publishing
2004
Territorial Rights
World
Imprint
Orient BlackSwan

The fictional events narrated in Mole! – an English translation of Otran, a novel by Ashokamitran – take place within a period of seven months, nearly all of them in the American Midwest. The narrator, a culturally rooted writer from Chennai, is transplanted amidst a motley group of fellow-writers from distant parts of the world, all of them as dangerously dislocated as him. Deprived of the language that has brought them fulfillment and distinction, these writers struggle to retain their place of precarious honour in a strange, unfamiliar and sometimes hostile environment. And in the background looms the endearing, if exasperating, landscape of twentieth-century America. Kalyan Raman’s English translation illumines the subtle, spare strength of Ashokamitran’s prose.

Ashokamitran is one of the most distinguished of contemporary Tamil writers. His work has been extensively translated into many Indian and European languages. He has won many honours and awards, including the Sahitya Akademi award in 1996. The English translation of his major Tamil novel Padinettavadu Atchakodu has been published by Orient Blackswan as The Eighteenth Parallel. The Translators: 

N. Kalyan Raman is a senior telecom professional, whose translations of Tamil short fiction has been published in several collections of Indian language fiction in translation, including the KATHA Prize Stories. He has translated a collection of Ashokamitran’s short stories The Colours of Evil.
1. Mention in The Hindu | March 23, 2017
2. Mole!
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