Venkat answers urgent knocks on the door to his flat one evening to find two insolent young men claiming to have business with his daughter Rekha. He deals with them shortly, only to find his quiet, middle-class life upended by a bewildering set of events over the next few days.
Even as Venkat is hurled into a world of street gangs and murky journalism, we see a parallel narrative unfold of a betrayal and disappearance from long ago. Could there be a connection? Set over four mostly sleepless days, we see Venkat lose grasp of the narrative even as he loses grasp of his wife and daughter.
Exquisitely translated from the Kannada by Srinath Perur, Sakina’s Kiss is a delicate, precise meditation on the persistence of old biases?and a rattled masculinity?in India’s changing social and political landscape. Ingeniously crafted, Vivek Shanbhag interrogates the space between truth and perception in this unforgettable foray into the minefield of family life.
Review
What a book! Quietly unsettling... [Vivek Shanbhag is] unique and subtle in his storytelling. -- Geetanjali Shree, author of the International Booker Prize-winning 'Tomb of Sand'
Astonishingly truthful and marvellously playful, Sakina's Kiss is an extraordinary novel. -- Megha Majumdar, author of the Whiting Prize-winning 'A Burning'
Not since Kafka, has a writer created such terror and tenderness on the same page. Vivek is probably the best writer writing in any language anywhere. If you read one book from India, read Sakina's Kiss. If you want to read one novel from anywhere in the world, read Sakina's Kiss. -- Mohammed Hanif, author of the Commonwealth Book Prize-winning 'A Case of Exploding Mangoes' and 'Our Lady of Alice Bhatti'
Tense, taut, and compulsively readable, Sakina’s Kiss arrives in the guise of a thriller and yet offers a delicate, vivid, and astute portrayal of contemporary Indian society, patriarchy, and human frailty. -- Deepa Anappara, author of the Edgar Award-winning 'Djinn Patrol on the Purple Line'
About the Author
VIVEK SHANBHAG is a Kannada author, editor and playwright. He founded the pioneering literary journal Desha Kaala, editing it for seven years. His works include the widely translated Ghachar Ghochar. Although his stories are regularly translated and anthologised, Sakina’s Kiss is only his second complete work to be translated into the English. He is a Visiting Professor of Creative Writing at the Ashoka University. He is an engineer by training and lives in Bangalore.
SRINATH PERUR writes about science, travel and books among other things and translates from Kannada to English. He is the author of the travelogue If It's Monday It Must Be Madurai and the translator of This Life at Play and Ghachar Ghochar.
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