One part woman
By: Perumal Murugan ; translated from the Tamil by Aniruddhan Vasudevan
Contributors: Aniruddhan Vasudevan, translator
Publisher: Penguin Books
Published: 2014
Place of publication: Haryana, India
Language: eng
Number of pages: 240
ISBN-13: 9780143423546; 9780143431817
Copyright date: 2013
Subjects: Childlessness; Fiction; Infertility; Spouses; Infécondité; Romans, nouvelles; Infertilité; Conjoints; Tamil; Sterilität; Ehepaar
Work titles: Mātorupākan̲
Description: All of Kali and Ponna's efforts to conceive a child - from prayers to penance, potions to pilgrimages - have been in vain. Despite being in a loving and sexually satisfying relationship, they are relentlessly hounded by the taunts and insinuations of the people around them. Ultimately, all their hopes and apprehensions come to converge on the chariot festival in the temple of the half-female god Ardhanareeswara and the revelry surrounding it. Everything hinges on the one night when rules are relaxed and consensual union between any man and woman is sanctioned. This night could end the couple's suffering and humiliation. But it will also put their marriage to the ultimate test. Acutely observed, One Part Woman lays bare with unsparing clarity a relationship caught between the dictates of social convention and the tug of personal anxieties, vividly conjuring an intimate and unsettling portrait of marriage, love and sex.
Notes: First published in Tamil as Maadhurbaagan by Kalachuvadu Publications, Tamil Nadu: 2010 ; first published in English in Hamish Hamilton by Penguin Books India 2013.

Translated from the Tamil.