My book Daughters of Kerala

Braj Kachru
Author, Professor, Researcher

The collection provides a touching chronicle of the contexts of women's experiences, frustrations, and struggles in the changing social order of that exciting part of India. The vivid translations open a window for non-Malayalam speakers in India and beyond to yet another regional facet of the world of Indian women...

Shashi Tharoor
Diplomat and Author of many books including, “India: From Midnight to Millennium.”

"Daughters of Kerala" is a marvelous collection of first-rate stories, skillfully translated by Achamma Chandersekaran, which marks a welcome addition to the English-speaking world's appreciation of Malayalam literature.

Lyn Richmond
Translator of Geoffrey Chaucer: "The Parliament of Birds"

To immerse one-self in these stories is to be drawn into a strange magic. Part of the strangeness is the juxtaposition of matter-of-fact modernity with a quality of absolute timelessness, arising in part from ancient Hindu mythology but drawing also on a deep-rooted poetic sensibility still un-self-consciously present in the people described here, especially the lovers. And their poetry makes the book sing. The intensity of feeling in these stories is the deeper, perhaps, because of the quietness of their prevailing tone.

Carla Danzinger
Author

DAUGHTERS OF KERALA: 25 SHORT STORIES BY AWARD-WINNING AUTHORS, translated from Malayalam by Achamma Chandersekaran, provides a fascinating read for anyone interested in the art of the short story, international literature, women's studies, or simply learning more about other cultures. Chandersekaran's anthology takes readers to the southwest region of India, where literacy is high and the tradition of short stories--to which women of Kerala have been important contributors--is at least a century old.