Perumal Murugan's Pyre didn't make the International Booker Prize 2023 shortlist. Here's why you should read it any way

Tamil writer Perumal Murugan

An academic and noted author in Tamil, Perumal Murugan has written 10 novels, five collections of short stories and poems besides several non-fiction titles relating to language and literature. His book Pyre was on the 2023 International Booker Prize Long List. While it is heartening that for the second year running – after Hindi novelist Geetanjali Shree’s win for Tomb of Sandstone – an Indian author is again being considered for the prestigious award, Murugan’s regular readers will rejoice at the phoenix-like ascension of a writer who, not so long ago, had declared the demise of his writing career. Fittingly, the longlisted book is titled Pookkuzhi, translated into English as Pyre.

Pyre (Pookuzhi), 2016

Demons and a death wish

Writing is a lonely business. Secret fears inhibit every author: Do I have anything original to say? Have I expressed myself or not? Will the publishers accept it? Will the readers ‘get it’? Will the critics be kind? In Perumal Murugan’s case, it was none of the above but a more overt and, therefore, more dangerous monster that restrained him. Five years after his 2010 novel Maadhorubhagan (translated into English by Aniruddhan Vasudevan as One Part Woman) was published, it aroused the anger of right-wing activists in his own hometown in western Tamil Nadu. Their feelings had been offended by its depiction of an obsolete sexual custom meant to help childless couples get offspring. Faced with severe harassment, that included a case against him in the Madras High Court, Murugan staged his own literary death in 2015 by writing a post on Facebook. ‘Perumal Murugan the writer is dead. As he is not god, he is not going to resurrect himself. He also has no faith in rebirth. An ordinary teacher, he will live as P. Murugan. Leave him alone.’ Luckily, the High Court, having more robust sensibilities than the plaintiffs, tossed the lawsuit out in 2016 saying: ‘If you don’t like a book, throw it away.’ The judgment’s closing words were: ‘Let the author be resurrected for what he is best at, to write.’

And write he did, despite the self- imposed exile from publishing. At first, poems (published later and translated as Songs of a Coward: Poems of Exile), then a short novel, Poonachi: Or The Story of A Black Goat that declared, with gentle irony, in its preface, ‘Goats are problem-free, harmless and above all energetic. A story needs narrative pace. Therefore, I have chosen to write about goats.’ Extraordinary at several levels, Poonachi is a tender story of the joy a feisty jet-black kid brings into the lives of an old goatherd and his wife; a coming-of-age tale as she survives predators and becomes a miracle of fecundity; an allegory of the human condition in modern times – from love to commerce to tragedy – highlighting the transactional nature of our interactions.

Through a caste lens, darkly

With Pyre (originally published in Tamil in 2013 and translated into English by Aniruddhan Vasudevan in 2016), Murugan turned to another contentious subject – that of inter-caste marriages and honour killings. Longlisted for the DSC Prize for South Asian Literature in 2017, Pyre is, in Romeo- and- Juliet tradition, a tale of forbidden love. Forbidden because the lovers belong to different castes, though these are never clearly mentioned. It begins with the arrival of the runaway newly-weds, Kumaresan and Saroja, at the former’s village, Kattupatti.

‘There was not a soul on the road. Even the birds were silent. Just an ashen dryness, singed by the heat, hung in the air. Saroja hesitated to venture into that inhospitable space.’ A foreshadowing of the reception when Kumaresan, propelled by ‘a blind courage,’ and lovesickness – ‘Can anyone who looks at your face not like you, my dear?’ – introduces his bride to his mother, the widow Marayi. Her reaction: ‘She clutched his shirt in her fist and slapped him repeatedly, sometimes striking his cheek and sometimes his chest. And then, turning to Saroja, she screamed, ‘What did you do to bewitch my son? How many men have you done this to?’

While Kumaresan tries, rather ineffectually, to dodge the question everyone asks, of Saroja’s caste, it is clear to the village community from the outset that she is different from them. For one, she is fair-skinned. Reason enough to shun her. What unfolds over the next 200 pages is a tautly written, chillingly realistic tale of caste-based bigotry. Beginning with an unrelenting stream of abuses and taunts, the young couple is subjected to ever-increasing humiliations, and finally an excommunication that they try to ignore in the vain hope that, ‘Everything will be all right.’

Through Saroja’s reveries we gather that she comes from a middle-sized town, Tholur, where lifestyles and attitudes are more progressive whereas, ‘The air in these parts had circulated within the confines of this place and turned poisonous.’

Realising that the villagers will never accept them, she tries to persuade Kumaresan to leave Kattupatti, but he continues to resist in the belief that his mother’s attitude is only stubbornness. Of the three people at the centre of the story, the widow Marayi stands out as the most compelling character. Her disappointment at her son’s choice is a reflection of her deep social anxiety. ‘Her morality was her only shield.’ It comes out as a seething rage, a mourning and incessant barbs directed at her daughter-in-law. Though Saroja craves her acceptance it is as if Marayi, who sees herself as the perennial victim of injustice, does not know – despite her fierce love for her son – how to be kind. And so the story hurtles towards a cliff hanger finale.

Despite or, perhaps, because of the simplicity and starkness of Murugan’s writing style, the world he creates in careful detail, but with seemingly effortless ease, is immersive. It becomes all too real, all too quickly. Emerging out of a novel like Pyre feels like a reprieve, but it isn’t – the questions it silently asks are important and remain with the reader.

International Booker Prize 2023 shortlist

Boulder: Written by Eva Baltasar; Translated by Julia Sanches (Spain)

Whale: Written by Cheon Myeong-kwan; Translated by Chi-Young Kim (South Korea)

The Gospel According to the New World: Written by Maryse Condé; Translated by Richard Philcox (Guadeloupe)

Standing Heavy: Written by GauZ'; Translated by Frank Wynne (Côte d’Ivoire)

Standing Heavy: Written by GauZ'; Translated by Frank Wynne (Côte d’Ivoire)

Time Shelter: Written by Georgi Gospodinov; Translated by Angela Rodel (Bulgaria)

Still Born: Written by Guadalupe Nettel; Translated by Rosalind Harvey (Mexico)