One Part Woman

All of Kali and Ponna's efforts to conceive a child - from prayers to penance, potions to pilgrimages - have been in vain. Despite being in a loving and sexually satisfying relationship, they are relentlessly hounded by the taunts and insinuations of the people around them. In the end, all their hopes and apprehensions come to converge on the chariot festival in the temple of the half-female god Ardhanareeswara and the revelry surrounding it. Everything hinges on the one night when rules are relaxed and consensual union between any man and woman is sanctioned. This night could end the couple's suffering and humiliation. But it will also put their marriage to the ultimate test. Acutely observed, One Part Woman lays bare with unsparing clarity a relationship caught between the dictates of social convention and the tug of personal anxieties. Widely acclaimed in the original Tamil, this novel vividly conjures on intimate and unsettling portrait of marriage, love and sex. Praise for Perumal Murgan 'The Tamil Irvine Welsh.' Guardian 'Murugan's insights about relationships spread throughout his work like flashes of lightning.' Kalachuvadu 'Powerful . . . lyrical.' The Hindu Translated by Aniruddhan Vasudevan