Here I Am and other stories – P.Sathyavathi, Translated from Telugu

Description

Sathyavathi’s stories explore the lives of a vast swathe of women – middle-class women yearning for economic independence, space and identity; women affected by migration, whether from rural areas to cities or from a metropolis to some dream world in the USA; young women fleeing from rural agricultural crises to become housemaids, wage labourers and construction workers in towns. Often, women from these several categories populate one story and the reader gets a glimpse of the commonality of women’s condition across race, class and caste. Mirroring the effects of globalization and cataclysmic changes in moral values and social behaviour – leading to devaluation of women – Sathyavathi brings the reader face to face with daily lived experiences in a narrative that is neither rhetorical nor verbose.