FROM ONE OF INDIA'S MOST RESPECTED AND BESTSELLING WRITERS COMES A SEARING AND POIGNANT NOVEL ABOUT LOVE AND INTOLERANCE IN A SMALL VILLAGE TWICE LONGLISTED FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK AWARD 'With tender rage, one of India's most powerful living writers breathes life into an age-old tale of forbidden passion' Nilanjana Roy 'Pyre is extraordinary. Rarely does literature reveal so much with so little' Nayomi Munaweera 'A major India writer' New York Times ______ Saroja and Kumaresan are young, in love and in danger. They meet in a small southern Indian town, where Kumaresan works in a soda bottling shop, and quickly marry before returning to Kumaresan's family village. But they are harbouring a dangerous secret: they belong to different castes, and if the villagers find out they will both be in grave peril. Faced with venom from her mother-in-law, and pointed new questions from her new neighbours, Saroja struggles to adjust to a lonely and uncomfortable life. Kumaresan throws himself into building a new soda business, hoping to scrape together enough money for them to start over somewhere new. But as vicious whispers encircle the couple, will their love be enough to keep them safe? ______ PRAISE FOR PYRE 'So tense it leaves you gasping for air' Ellen Barry, New York Times 'Pyre glows with power… and adds immeasurable value to contemporary Indian literature… a hard and glittering gem of a story' The Hindu 'A haunting story of forbidden love set in Southern India that illustrates the cruel consequences of societal intolerance' Kirkus Reviews, starred review 'Piercing detail… The simple, elegant prose of Vasudevan's translation ranges from poetic to suspenseful… Murugan deserves worldwide recognition' Publishers Weekly, starred review
"Perumal Murugan is one of India's best-known literary novelists, and Pyre is beautifully done... The title promises a dramatic conclusion, and the book delivers"
Guardian
"Murugan's fictional villages are places full of quiet menace, where caste boundaries are protected with violence and social exclusion . . . [Pyre is] so tense it leaves you gasping for air"
New York Times
"The sense of disquieting intrusion and judgement moving into view is palpable...Restrained, clear...intimacy and creating, for the reader, an overwhelming feeling of pathos"
