The Man in search of a Face – Kumarmoorthy , Translated by Padma Naraya

Description

Most of the stories in this anthology relate to the Tamil revolution in Sri Lanka during the 1980s. It is important that they are told and read again and again, for they are the grim records of history and dark reminders of the ways in which history repeats itself.

Kumarsami Vinayaga Moorthy, popularly known as Kumarmoorthy, was born in the island of Sri Lanka. He was 45 when he died in 2001. He came from Canada to Tamil Nadu, India, for medical treatment. He died in a hospital in Chennai. In the beginning of the eighties, he began exploring the possibilities of foreign travel and started working on ships. When he returned to Sri Lanka, the Sri Lankan revolution had turned into a violent war. He joined the movement and became active in it. Life continued to be very difficult, and he migrated to Canada. All Kumarmoorthy’s short stories were written within a span of three years. These few stories were appreciated by many readers. His stories and the magazine Kalam introduced him to a wider readership and are celebrated to this day.

Padma Narayanan (b 1935) started writing Tamil short stories in her late teens. Many of her stories were published in prominent Tamil magazines; she won a prestigious Kalki magazine prize in 1966. She has been translating Tamil literary fiction for over 30 years. Her most recent translation was of Sharmila Seyyid’s novella, Panikkerin Peththi (The Elephant Tamer’s Granddaughter), which is awaiting publication by Yoda Press for the University of Nebraska. Earlier, she translated a collection of stories (Video Mariamman and Other Stories) by the noted writer Imayam (Speaking Tiger, 2021), who won the Sahitya Akademi award for 2021. Before that came Along with the Sun (Harper Collins, 2020), the translation of an anthology of stories by writers from Tamil Nadu’s black-soil region edited by Ki Rajanarayanan, the greatest writer from the region and a Sahitya Akademi awardee.