# Zero Degree

Zero Degree is a 1998 postmodern, transgressive, lipogrammatic novel by Tamil author Charu Nivedita, who is based in India. It was later translated into Malayalam and English.

## Summary

Zero Degree follows the life of a protagonist who navigates through a series of surreal and chaotic events. The narrative is non-linear and fragmented, reflecting the protagonist's fragmented psyche. The story delves into themes of identity, sexuality, and existential angst, with vivid and often disturbing imagery. The protagonist encounters various characters and situations that challenge conventional norms and societal expectations.
The novel is known for its experimental style, incorporating elements of phone sex conversations, nightmarish torture scenes, tender love poems, numerology, mythology, and compulsive name-dropping of Latin American intellectuals. It's a journey through the deepest psychic wounds of humanity, exploring the boundaries of human experience and consciousness.

## Awards and accolades

| Year | Awards and accolades | Remarks |
| 2013 | Jan Michalski Prize | Longlisted for the 2013 edition |
| 2013 | 50 Writers, 50 Books - The Best of Indian Fiction | Book published by HarperCollins |
| 2014 | important novel in the Metafiction genre | Considered by The Sunday Guardian |
| 2017 | Fifteen lesser known but incredible Indian novels. | Selected in by Mensxp.com |

## Literary contemporaries on Zero Degree

* In his foreword to the Malayalam translation of Zero Degree, Paul Zacharia wrote, "It is like an open experimental laboratory. Amidst the smoke, noxious vapors, and beautiful imagery, I experienced a wondrous journey."
* Tarun Tejpal opines that Zero Degree is remarkable for its experimental voice and its varying and shifting tonalities.
* Anil Menon considers Zero Degree bold and ambitious. He posits that the ancient fascination with language and reality continues to burst through the crust in Charu Nivedita’s works.
* Noted translator Jason Grunebaum considers Zero Degree wildly exciting and complains that Charu does not write in Hindi, so that he would translate Charu's works to English.
* Poet Vivek Narayanan says about Zero Degree: "I think we should take Zero Degree not just as a playful, ironic “postmodern” novel but as a novel of oppositions and contradictions: a deeply autobiographical novel where the self has been scattered, an ironic pastiche novel that speaks to raw experience, a defiantly cosmopolitan novel than nonetheless pins a very particular kind of schizophrenic rage that perhaps—I could be wrong—any Tamilian will immediately recognise."

## Universities on Zero Degree

* Zero Degree was on the curriculum in Spring 2010 in a Comparative World Literature course, taught by Jordan Smith, at California State University, Long Beach (CSULB).
* University of Rochester has included Zero Degree in its translation program.
* The Malayalam translation of Zero Degree is in the curriculum for postgraduate students at the Mahatma Gandhi University, Kottayam.

## Translations

* Zero Degree was translated into Malayalam in 1999 by Dr G.Balasubrahmanian and Dr P.M.Gireesh.
* It was translated into English in 2008 by Pritham K. Chakravarthy and Rakesh Khanna.
* Further translations into Telugu, Hindi and Spanish are on the anvil.

## Reviews

* Review of Zero Degree in Tehelka
* Review of Zero Degree by Pallavi Rao
* Review of Zero Degree in the Times of India
* Review of Zero Degree in The New Sunday Express

## Special feature

Keeping with the numerological theme of Zero Degree, the only numbers expressed in either words or symbols are numerologically equivalent to nine (with the exception of two chapters). This Oulipian ban includes the very common word one (only in Tamil edition).