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Cuckold
by Kiran Nagarkar
Description:
The time is early 16th century. The Rajput kingdom of Mewar is at the height of its power. It is locked in war with the Sultanates of Delhi, Gujarat and Malwa. But there is another deadly battle being waged within Mewar itself. who will inherit the throne after the death of the Maharana? The course of history, not just of Mewar but of the whole of India, is about to be changed forever. At the centre of Cuckold is the narrator, heir apparent of Mewar, who questions the codes, conventions and underlying assumptions of the feudal world of which he is a part, a world in which political and personal conduct are dictated by values of courage, valour and courtesy; and death is preferable to dishonour. A quintessentially Indian story, Cuckold has an immediacy and appeal that are truely universal.
About The Author
Kiran Nagarkar (born 1942) is an Indian novelist, playwright, film and drama critic and screenwriter both in Marathi and English, and is one of the most significant writers of postcolonial India.
Amongst his works are Saat Sakkam Trechalis (tr. Seven Sixes Are Forty Three) (1974), Ravan and Eddie (1994), and the epic novel, Cuckold (1997) for which he was awarded the 2001 Sahitya Akademi Award in English by the Sahitya Akademi, India’s National Academy of Letters.
Nagarkar is notable among Indian writers for having written acclaimed novels in more than one language. His first novel, Saat Sakkam Trechalis (later published in English as Seven Sixes Are Forty Three) is considered one of the landmark works of Marathi literature.
His novel Ravan and Eddie, begun in Marathi but completed in English, was not published until 1994. Since Ravan and Eddie, all Nagarkar’s novels have been written in English. His third novel, Cuckold on mystic Meerabai’s husband, Bhoj Raj, was published in 1997 and won the 2001 Sahitya Akademi Award. It has been translated into a number of languages and has become one of the most beloved contemporary Indian novels, both in India and in Europe.
It took him nine years to write his next, God’s Little Soldier, a tale of a liberal Muslim boy’s tryst with religious orthodoxy, which was published in 2006, to mixed reviews. In 2012, he published The Extras, a sequel to Ravan and Eddie that traces the adult lives of Ravan and Eddie as extras in Bollywood. The third and last book in the “Ravan and Eddie” series was written in 2015, “Rest in Peace’ to complete a trilogy of sorts.
Kiran Nagarkar was awarded the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany, described as the ‘highest tribute Germany can pay to individuals’.
Skryf Review
The author has been bold in the manner in which he has written such a long book. There is a single thread of narration that follows the Maharaj Kumar and anyone could have easily been bored in the long 600+ pages, but it is was not. . Secondly, The language was modern but it somehow didnt feel awkward. The lucidity meant that once it held your interest it was a pacy read.