Bøker av Sukumaran

About the BookA NOVEL ON THE INNER LIFE OF SHAH JAHAN'S DAUGHTER, JAHANARALittle is known about Shah Jahan's daughter Jahanara, the most erudite of Mughal princesses. Even as an adolescent she advised her emperor father on state affairs and diplomacy. Fending off the machinations of Shah Jahan's devious stepmother, Noor Mahal, who manipulated her husband Jahangir and later Aurangzeb like a puppeteer, Jahanara is known to have continually attempted to broker peace between Shah Jahan, Dara Shikoh and Aurangzeb. Conversant in Persian, Sanskrit and several other languages, she had studied not only the Quran but also the Vedas and Puranas. She owned, at one point, the largest number of ships for sea trade in the Bay of Bengal. However, hers was also a life of great emotional turmoil. Her grandfather, the Emperor Akbar, had ruled that women born into the royal family were not to take lovers or enter into marriage. But Jahanara had fallen deeply in love with the Rajput king Chattar Sal. She led a life of constant isolation, tending to her father and relying on the friendship of a tenacious eunuch called Panipat. An unusual novel in Tamil literature, Sukumaran's Jahanara tells the story that Panipat stood witness to. It brings to vivid life a woman whose personal freedom was tossed into the hellfire burning between her brothers. Stifled by the veil of Mughal traditions, Jahanara found solace in writing diaries, which this moving novel draws upon.About the AuthorSukumaran is an acclaimed writer and editor. He has published six volumes of poems, six volumes of essays and articles, and a novel in Tamil. He has translated several works including selected works of eminent writers such as Vaikkam Mohammed Basheer, Paul Zachariah, K. Satchidanandan and Adoor Gopalakrishnan from Malayalam into Tamil. He has also translated the works of Pablo Neruda, Gunter Grass, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Alessandro Barrico, Ayfer Tunc, among others, into Tamil. Sukumaran was the editor of the Tamil magazine Kungumam and the chief editor of Surya TV. Currently, he is the executive editor of Kalachuvadu magazine.

Wellington is a small town created by the British during 1852-1868 for their military purposes. The novel searches through the lives of the unknown inhabitants of this town. In a way, it reflects the history of a small place. The story revolves around a boy who understands in his teenage period, the town, its people, and the times in which he lives.

Writer, poet sukumaran's second novel is on the life of a mughal princess. Jahanara begum was the eldest daughter of Mughal king shah jahan and his beloved queen mumtaz mahal. She had the political expertise to advice her father at the age of fourteen, and has learnt hindu puraanas, persian books and the Quran. She knew history, poetry, dance, music and architecture among other things. She was a dreamer and had plans to carry out her dreams. She had elephants,horses, ships and wealth. She had power. But she was also denied a freedom that gives meaning to all this things. The historical injustice as she was a woman is portrayed in this excellent novel, through her own perspective, and that of her friend a hijra from shahjahan's court.