Background
Perumal Murugan was born in 1966 in Tiruchengode, India. He is a son of a farmer.
Madras University, Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India
Perumal Murugan holds a Master of Philosophy degree and a Doctor of Philosophy degree from Madras University.
Perumal Murugan
Perumal Murugan
Perumal Murugan
Perumal Murugan
(Sathi is a young soda-seller in a run-down cinema hall in...)
Sathi is a young soda-seller in a run-down cinema hall in a small town. Ill-paid and always weary, he finds relief from everyday tedium in marijuana and his friends vulnerable, desperate young men who work around the movie hall. An intense and tender friendship with one of the men sustains Sathi, until a train of events casts the meagre certainties of his days and nights into disarray. Slick, visceral and startlingly inventive, Current Show unfolds in a manner that simulates rapid cinematic cuts. Murugan s keen eye and crackling prose plumb the dark underbelly of smalltown life, bringing Sathi s world and entanglements thrillingly to life.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0143428357/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_bibl_vppi_i8
1993
(Shorty, a young untouchable farmhand, is in bondage to a ...)
Shorty, a young untouchable farmhand, is in bondage to a paternal yet powerful landlord. He spends his days herding sheep and tilling the fields, caught between the rigours of an unforgiving life and the solace he finds in nature and the company of his friends. He struggles to keep a fragile happiness, but endless work and a stubborn hunger gnaw away at his spirited innocence. And before long, Shorty must confront the unyielding reality of his situation.
https://www.amazon.com/Seasons-Palm-Perumal-Murugan-ebook/dp/B0716F5Q5S/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=Seasons+of+the+Palm+Murugan&qid=1576052603&s=books&sr=1-1
2000
(This novel dealt with the consequences of sex-selective a...)
This novel dealt with the consequences of sex-selective abortions and female foeticide that caused a skewed sex ratio in the Kongunadu region.
https://www.amazon.com/Kanganam-Perumal-Murugan/dp/B01N3B4TIP/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=Kanganam+Murugan&qid=1576052715&s=books&sr=1-1
2008
(One Part Woman dealt with a young childless couple strugg...)
One Part Woman dealt with a young childless couple struggling within their marriage, drawing specifically from the community and culture of the Kongunadu region.
https://www.amazon.com/One-Part-Woman-Perumal-Murugan/dp/0802128807/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=One+Part+Woman+Murugan&qid=1576052785&s=books&sr=1-1
2013
(Saroja and Kumaresan are in love. After a hasty wedding, ...)
Saroja and Kumaresan are in love. After a hasty wedding, they arrive in Kumaresan’s village, harboring a dangerous secret: their marriage is an inter-caste one, likely to upset the village elders should they get to know of it. Kumaresan is naively confident that all will be well. But nothing is further from the truth. Despite the strident denials of the young couple, the villagers strongly suspect that Saroja must belong to a different caste. It is only a matter of time before their suspicions harden into certainty and, outraged, they set about exacting their revenge.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B06XYBFBV9/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_hsch_vapi_taft_p1_i3
2016
(As he did in the award-winning One Part Woman, in his new...)
As he did in the award-winning One Part Woman, in his newest novel, The Story of a Goat, Perumal Murugan explores a side of India that is rarely considered in the West: the rural lives of the country’s farming community. He paints a bucolic yet sometimes menacing portrait, showing movingly how danger and deception can threaten the lives of the weakest through the story of a helpless young animal lost in a world it naively misunderstands. s the novel opens, a farmer in Tamil Nadu is watching the sun set over his village one quiet evening when a mysterious stranger, a giant man who seems more than human, appears on the horizon. He offers the farmer a black goat kid who is the runt of the litter, surely too frail to survive. The farmer and his wife take care of the young she-goat, whom they name Poonachi, and soon the little goat is bounding with joy and growing at a rate they think miraculous for such a small animal. Intoxicating passages from the goat’s perspective offer a bawdy and earthy view of what it means to be an animal and a refreshing portrayal of the natural world. But Poonachi’s life is not destined to be a rural idyll - dangers can lurk around every corner, and may sometimes come from surprising places, including a government that is supposed to protect the weak and needy. Is this little goat too humble a creature to survive such a hostile world? With allegorical resonance for contemporary society and examining hierarchies of caste and color, The Story of the Goat is a provocative but heartwarming fable from a world-class storyteller who is finally achieving recognition outside his home country.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07QM9QFP3/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_hsch_vapi_taft_p1_i0
2016
(Caste, as it is experienced in everyday life, is the pièc...)
Caste, as it is experienced in everyday life, is the pièce de résistance of this book. Thirty-two voices narrate how from childhood to adulthood, caste intruded upon their lives - food, clothes, games, gait, love, marriage and every aspect of one’s existence including death. Like the editor Perumal Murugan says, caste is like god, it is omnipresent. The contributors write about the myriad ways in which they have experienced caste. It may be in the form of forgoing certain kinds of food, or eating food at secluded corners of a household, or drinking tea out of a crushed plastic cup, or drinking black coffee in a coconut shell or water poured from above into a cupped hand. Such experiences may also take the form of forbidden streets, friends disapproved of and love denied. And when one leaves behind the fear of caste while living one’s life, there is still death to deal with.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0778ZZ56H/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_hsch_vapi_taft_p1_i2
2017
(Through a seeming act of providence, an old couple receiv...)
Through a seeming act of providence, an old couple receives a day-old female goat kid as a gift from the cosmos. Thus begins the story of Poonachi, the little orphan goat, who survives against the odds and carries the burden of being different all her life long. As you follow her story from forest to habitation, independence to motherhood, you recognise in its significant moments the depth and magnitude of your own fears and longings, fuelled by instinct for survival that animates all life.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/9386850494/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_hsch_vapi_taft_p1_i4
2017
(A king decrees that all humans be skinned alive. A man ru...)
A king decrees that all humans be skinned alive. A man runs from words that hound him like a pack of wolves. A legion of white snakes sweeps across a land blighted by drought. A beleaguered soul laments the loss of a homeland. A coward's many virtues are lauded to disturbing effect. By turns passionate, elegiac, angry, tender, nightmarish and courageous, the poems in Songs of a Coward weave an exquisite tapestry of rich images and turbulent emotions. Written during a period of immense personal turmoil, these verses are an enduring testament to the resilience of an imagination under siege and the liberating power of words in one's darkest moments.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0759XPWW7/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_hsch_vapi_taft_p1_i6
2017
Perumal Murugan was born in 1966 in Tiruchengode, India. He is a son of a farmer.
Perumal Murugan holds a Master of Philosophy degree and a Doctor of Philosophy degree from Madras University.
As his father was not able to feed the family by agricultural labor alone, Perumal Murugan worked as a soda-seller in a local cinema. He developed an interest in literature at an early age and wrote a number of children’s songs, some of which were broadcast on an All India Radio children’s show in Trichy.
Between 1988 and 1991, Murugan published over a dozen short stories in "Mana Oosai" magazine and quickly became an important new voice in Tamil literature. Endowing his protagonists with a vivid sense of dignity and vitality, his stories contain detailed descriptions of life in his home country, including the cultivation of arable land and the cooking of millet over log fires.
In 1991, he wrote "Eru Veyyil" (translated Rising Heat), the first of ten novels. It is narrated from the perspective of the youngest son of a family of farmers torn apart by the pressures of urbanization. Murugan’s second novel "Nizhal Mutram" (1993; translated Current Show) draws on his childhood experiences in the 1970s and was praised for its realistic and frank depiction of the protagonist’s everyday life, his joys and sense of freedom. Murugan’s third novel "Koolamadari" (2000, translated Seasons of Palm), which was nominated for the Kiriyama Prize in 2005, depicts the adventures of a young goatherd from the Chakali caste who works off his invalid father’s debts in a Gounder home.
He has written six novels, four collections of short stories and four anthologies of poetry. He also served as a professor of Tamil at the Government Arts College in Namakkal. He has made several contributions to research and academic study of Tamil literature specific to the Kongunadu region, including building a lexicon of words, idioms and phrases special to Kongunadu.
In January 2015, he announced that he is giving up writing after he came under attack for blasphemy from Hindutva for his novel Madhurobhagan which was first published in 2010. Madhorubhagan has been translated and published in English as One Part Woman. It is a fictional account of a poor, childless couple, and how the wife, who wants to conceive, takes part in an ancient Hindu chariot festival where, on one night, consensual sex between any man and woman is allowed. Murugan explores the tyranny of caste and pathologies of a community in tearing the couple apart and destroying their marriage. In his fictional account, Murugan alludes to actual places and communities, thereby leading to aspersions being cast on the parentage of many generations of the community.
A series of litigation and suits concerning One Part Woman were instituted before the Madras High Court, and on July 5, 2016 the Madras High Court dismissed the case under citing Article 19(1)(a) of the Constitution of India, ruled that there was no binding force or obligation in the previous state intervention that forced him to apologise and withdraw the books. Murugan returned to his literary career with a collection of poetry. He was also a professor of Tamil at the Government Arts College in Namakkal.
(As he did in the award-winning One Part Woman, in his new...)
2016(One Part Woman dealt with a young childless couple strugg...)
2013(This novel dealt with the consequences of sex-selective a...)
2008(Through a seeming act of providence, an old couple receiv...)
2017(Shorty, a young untouchable farmhand, is in bondage to a ...)
2000(Caste, as it is experienced in everyday life, is the pièc...)
2017(A novel on the urbanisation process and its impact on fam...)
1991(Sathi is a young soda-seller in a run-down cinema hall in...)
1993(A king decrees that all humans be skinned alive. A man ru...)
2017(Saroja and Kumaresan are in love. After a hasty wedding, ...)
2016Perumal Murugan is married to Ezhilarasi. They have two children: a daughter, Ilampirai, and a son, Ilamparidhi.