White Elephant - Couverture souple

Jeyamohan

Couverture souple

ISBN 10 : 0374619425 ISBN 13 : 9780374619428

Editeur : FSG Originals, 2026

Synopsis

A dazzling postcolonial inversion of Heart of Darkness set during the Great Indian Famine of 1878 that recounts its devastating cost to both life and human dignity.

It is 1878, and Aiden Byrne, an Irish police officer in Madrasapatnam, loyal servant to the crown and Queen Victoria, knows that there is no danger that he ought to fear in this heatblasted and famine-devastated land.

But when he discovers two laborers from Tudor Ice Company being brutally whipped in the countryside, he is dragged into a world whose surface he has only skimmed before. He sees the horrific conditions under which the local workers, members of the lowest rung of the caste system, process the mammoth blocks of ice that are carved out of frozen New England lakes and transported to India for use in the drinks and iceboxes of the colonial forces.

When the two workers disappear--presumably killed--Byrne is approached by Kathavarayan, a charismatic young activist belonging to a lower caste, who is looking to put things right. He sets Byrne off on a journey that brings him face-to-face with the bloody toll of the famine raging through the country--one that would kill more than eight million people before it was done--and forces him to grapple with his own precarious and complicated role in the machinery of the British empire.

In White Elephant, Jeyamohan uses surreal prose and vivid imagery to deliver a searing account of a crucial moment in the history of a nation, a city, and a people.

A propos du livre

À propos des auteurs

Jeyamohan is a Tamil writer and literary critic based in Nagercoil, India. One of India's finest authors writing today, his work examines and reinterprets India's rich literary and classical traditions. A prolific writer, his output includes multiple novels, short stories, volumes of literary criticism, writer biographies, introductory texts to Indian and Western literature, books on philosophy, and numerous other translations and collections.

Priyamvada Ramkumar is a translator from Tamil to English. Her debut translation was Jeyamohan's Stories of the True, originally published in English in India. Take Me Back, her translation of A. Muttulingam's short story "Ennai Thirupi Edu," was published in Spillwords Press, an online literary magazine. She has been awarded a 2022 ALTA Emerging Translator's Mentorship as well as a 2023 PEN/Heim Translation Fund Grant for her work on Jeyamohan's White Elephant. She lives in Chennai, India.

Détails de l'édition

• Éditeur: FSG Originals
• Date d'édition: 2026
• Langue: anglais
• ISBN 10: 0374619425
• ISBN 13: 9780374619428
• Reliure: Broché
• Nombre de pages: 336
• Coordonnées du fabricant: non disponible
• Personne responsable: non disponible