In this reimagined history, Sarah Joseph evokes Budhini with vigour, authority and panache, conjuring up a robust and endearing feminine character and reminding us of the lives and stories that should never be forgotten.
Translated by Sangeetha Sreenivasan, a fiercely individualistic novelist herself, Sarah Joseph’s Budhini powerfully invokes the wider bio-politics of our relentless modernization and the dangers of being indifferent to ecological realities.
‘I felt Budhini had to be revived from the criminal forgetfulness of the country; she wasn’t just a mud block that was broken during the great nation-building process I felt that she should rise again in the nation’s memory along with the hundreds of villages, vast farmlands, forests and temple complexes that were drowned in the Panchet reservoir.’
– Sarah Joseph
ABOUT THE BOOK
On 6 December 1959, Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru went to Jharkhand’s Dhanbad district to inaugurate the Panchet Dam across the Damodar river. A fifteenyear- old Santal girl chosen by the Damodar Valley Corporation welcomed him with a garland and placed a tika on his forehead. When these ceremonial gestures were interpreted as an act of matrimony, the girl was ostracized by her village and let go from her job as a construction worker. Citing a violation of Santal traditions, she was outlawed for marrying outside her community. Her name was Budhini. Budhini Mejhan’s is the tale of an uprooted life, told through the contemporary lens of Rupi Murmu, a young journalist and a distant relative who is determined to excavate her story. In this reimagined history, Sarah Joseph evokes Budhini with vigour, authority and panache, conjuring up a robust and endearing feminine character, reminding us of the lives and stories that should never be forgotten. Translated by her daughter Sangeetha Sreenivasan, a fiercely individualistic novelist herself, Sarah Joseph’s Budhini powerfully invokes the wider biopolitics of our relentless modernization and the dangers of being indifferent to ecological realities.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR –
SARAH JOSEPH is a highly acclaimed Malayalam novelist, short-story writer, political commentator and activist. She is the author of eight novels, nine collections of short fiction, five novelettes, several plays, children’s literature and several non-fiction books. Her many awards include the Sahitya Akademi Award, the Kerala Sahitya Akademi Award, the Vayalar Award, the Crossword Award, the Padmaprabha Literary Award, the O. Chandu Menon Award and the Saraswati Samman. Her name is inextricably linked with the feminist movement in Kerala, and her radical writings have inspired and paved the way for future generations of Malayali working women and activists.
ABOUT THE TRANSLATOR-
SANGEETHA SREENIVASAN is a bilingual author of several works of fiction and children’s literature, including Acid, published by Penguin Random House India in 2018. In addition to her original works, Sreenivasan has translated Elena Ferrante’s The Days of Abandonment into Malayalam. Her translation of one of Georges Simenon’s Maigret novels is forthcoming from Mathrubhumi Books. She is currently working on a translation of Chris Kraus’s cult feminist classic I Love Dick.
HB | 599 | 288pgs | Hamish Hamilton
Releasing on 5 April 2021
