A great novel in the tradition of O.V. Vijayan's Legends of Khasak. A writer who left me amazed. A madness seems to have possessed Manoj Kuroor. A novel such as this is rare indeed. -- Jeyamohan, author of Stories of the True

The great poets of ancient Tamil and the warrior-kings they praised or cursed inhabit the pages of Manoj Kuroor's exceptional, lyrical work. But this book is not a historical novel. It is a shimmering prose-poem, keyed to the natural world of southern India as it once must have been, or as a brilliant poet could re-imagine it. Here the outer world of flowers, rivers, sky, wilderness, elephants, serpents and goddesses reflects the intense inner life of the characters, as if we were reading a compelling, classical Tamil poem composed just for us. -- David Shulman, author of Tamil: A Biography

A fantastically vivid reimagining of a classical society in which life is neatly ordered and culturally sophisticated but also uncertain, violent and dramatic. Kuroor has drawn characters distinctly modern in their troubled self-consciousness, driven to seek not the heroic destinies celebrated in legends but highly personal and recognisable ends. -- Anjum Hasan, author of History's Angel

Manoj Kuroor's Nilam Poothu Malarnna Naal is a rare work in Indian literature. It takes a language as its theme, philosophy and metaphor. Before it was consecrated and confined in the stone idols of Sanskrit by the anthanar - the brahmins - and the varathar - the ones who came from elsewhere - the Malayalam language was rooted in the fertile soils of the Dravida tongue. There it thrived and flourished and bloomed lushly. Nilam Poothu Malaranna Naal brings back to life that experience and marks it in our memory. The book is a reverent song resplendent with the fiery sparks that flew off the history of the ancient people of Kerala and the politics that shaped it. This narrative of the tribal life of yore is such that it makes possible a pan-Indian moulting of the caste system and the history of languages.
I believe this book is a milestone in the history of Malayalam literature. Only someone like Manoj Kuroor who combines academic knowledge and creative imagination in language and literature, and scholarship with performance of music, is capable of such a feat - of imagining and realising such a book.
It is also a milestone in the history of translation. For this is a book in which the translator inevitably encounters every single hurdle in the way of translation with the same intensity. It calls for deep knowledge of history, extraordinary mastery of language and the willingness to let the spirit be consumed by the soul of the work. This is a da