Now let's look at the stories.

Betty Friedan's Feminine Mystique published in the US in 1963 is given credit for igniting the Women's Liberation movement. The book questioned why women could only be in roles that required them to be dependend on men financially, intellectually and emotionally; it questioned why women had to find identity and meaning in their lives through their husbands and sons. It may seem unbelievable that a woman writer in Kerala questioned the very same notions 15 years before Feminine Mystique. Saraswathyamma wrote Female Intellect in 1948. Her stories were her reaction to the question she asked herself: "Why can't women live free and work along side men as equals?" She was angry at the second class status given to women. But a character in Female Intellect, Vijayalakshmi, explains the situation: "Tradition, circumstances, social customs and nature's secrets have gotten together and the woman's brain has to surrender before all these." (p 28)

You may agree that the situation remains a universal problem even today. A woman who takes time off to start a family finds that her career track is somewhat limited because her brain has to surrender to Nature's secrets, tradition, circumstances and social customs. This familiar theme was written about over 60 years ago, 15 years before Feminine Mystique.

Saraswathyamma wrote about the then existing social life from a point of view of women. Though that view point came in conflict with the status quo, this conflict became the hallmark of her stories and set them apart. Sadly, she was not recognized as a writer with new ideas until the 90's when feminism became a recognized topic --20 years after her death and over 40 years after she wrote Female Intellect. You may know how these things are, if you write about controversial topics you just don't get published, perhaps even more so if you are a woman.

More on Thursday.

I had given two reasons why I decided to translate stories from Malayalam to English--1)By taking world literature courses I had realized that we can learn a great deal about another culture by reading their literature and 2) The enjoyable experience I had in translating for the UNESCO. There was a third reason, may be the most important reason. In 1985 I was asked to present a paper on "Women's Contribution to Malayalam Literature" at the Second World Malayalam Conference held in Washington, DC "because there is no one else to do it." Preparing that paper was the first opportunity I had to read a good amount of Malayalam literature seriously. That experience made me realize for the first time, the beauty of the language and how much one might learn about the culture and life in Kerala through the varied themes the authors presented.

"Daughters of Kerala" is my first solo translation project. In my inexperienced way, I had decided that the main criterion for selecting stories would be that the book would include atories about all groups of people in Kerala and the book IS all inclusive.

Marie Varghese in her review of the book said, "One of the great strengths of the anyhology comes from the variety of voices that are featured in these stories. These stories represent the experiences of women from a variety of economic backgrounds." All marital status-married, divorced, unmarried-and the three main religious groups--Hindus, Muslims and Christians--are also represented. This may be one reason why everyone who reads the book will identify with one story or other. The Dean of Santa Monica College in California expressed that point saying, "We start to read the book to transport ourselves to another place , yet come to find ourselves in these stories."

The stories selected for the book justify translation not only for the skills of their authors, but also for the fact that many of them speak to social issues that remain relevant even today.

I will start with the stories next Monday and plan to post them on Mondays and Thursdays.

I can say I posted on Thursday. It is 11:59 PM