Menaka Shivdasani's books

MENKA SHIVDASANI ON BOOKS

I have recently read Anita Nair’s new book, Mistress.

It was on the Orange Prize for fiction long list 2008. I think it is a masterful piece of work, richly textured and multilayered, and she unmasks these layers with care. Dance is the central motif in this novel and Nair, who is known for researching her subject in depth, had enrolled in a Kerela Kalamandalam to write this book. The protagonist, Radha, is married to a man she sees as an ambitious and insensitive boor, and finds herself drawn to a cello-playing foreigner who has moved in. By itself, this might have been a slight narrative but Nair successfully weaves in different strands from the past. She takes the ordinary and makes it memorable.

Shivdasani is the author of Stet and Nirvana at Ten Rupees