Kiran Manral's Blog, page 14
July 17, 2018
July 16, 2018
July 14, 2018
Missing, Presumed Dead is here
[image error]“A gripping and sinister tale. Kiran Manral holds you with every page.” –Ashwin Sanghi
Missing, Presumed Dead.
Examining the destruction a dysfunctional marriage and mental illness leave in their wake, ‘Missing Presumed Dead’ confronts the fragility of relationships, the ugly truths about love and death and the horrifying loss of everything we hold dear, including ourselves.
Thank you Ashwin Sanghi for the kind words.
Published by Amaryllis, cover design by the kick ass Mishta Roy, edited by Rashmi Menon and Archana Pai Kulkarni.
Order your copy here: https://www.amazon.in/dp/9387383687/r...
June 24, 2018
June 20, 2018
Saving Maya long listed for Saboteur Awards 2018, UK.
And I just discover that Saving Maya had made it to the Saboteur Awards long list in the Novella category, and the only Indian author in my category. Had no clue and didn’t even cast my hat around for votes. Thanks Ishaan Jajodia, Vivek Rao and Kausalya Saptharishi for the trust.
This is about the Saboteur Awards, UK, supported by the Arts Council, England:
SABOTEUR AWARDS 2018
Sabotage Reviews was founded in 2010 by Claire Trévien to provide dynamic commentary and reviews of small-scale and ephemeral literature that might not otherwise receive such critical and public attention. The focus is on independent, small-budget literature; poetry pamphlets, short stories and live performance (particularly open mic events and spoken word shows).
Sabotage is representative of the hugely diverse amount of work actually being made and written in the ‘literary ecology’. They stand for inclusiveness and commitment to new voices in literature.
Here’s the shortlist and the longlist:
Best Novella Shortlist
Dead Dogs & Angels by Mickela Sonola (Holland House Books)
How to Make A Window Snake by Charmaine Wilkerson (Ad Hoc Fiction)
The Reactive by Masande Ntshanga (Jacaranda Books)
Seed by Joanna Walsh (Visual Editions)*
Tumours by Chay Collins (Ampersand Publishing)
Longlist
Gaudy Bauble, Isabel Waidner (Dostoyevsky Wannabee)
El Hacho by Luis Carrasco (époque press)
Love by Hanne Ørstavik, trans. by Martin Aitken (Archipelago Books)
Mapping the Interior by Stephen Graham Jones
The Ogress of Reading by Eithne Cullen (new Generation Publishing)
Our Bright Dark Summer by Richard Daniels (Wild Soar Books)
Saving Maya by Kiran Manral (Bombaykala Books)
Sealed by Naomi Booth (Dead Ink)
Water into Wine by Joyce Chng (Annorlunda Enterprises)
The End We Start From by Megan Hunter (Picador)
http://sabotagereviews.com/2018/04/09/saboteur-awards-2018-shortlist/
May 21, 2018
Saving Maya review: “Kiran Manral does not offer her readers the assurance of a happy ending”
Book Review: Saving Maya, by Kiran Manral
When I picked up Saving Mayaat a book store, I half visualised a woman named Maya who had to be sent to rehab or needed to be rescued from a cult. However, the blurb on the rear talked of a divorced woman in her mid-thirties (with a young son) finding love and I was intrigued enough to drop the book into my shopping bag.
Read the entire review here
Thanks Vinod Joseph for the kind words.
April 24, 2018
Featured on Flipkart for WorldBookDay yesterday
Delighted and honoured to be among the 12 featured authors by Flipkart on World Book Day, amongst stalwarts I admire and peers I respect and enjoy reading like Ruskin Bond Sudha Murthy, Arundhati Roy, Ashwin SanghiAmish Tripathi, Savi Sharma Durjoy Datta, Yashodhara Lal Sharma Anuja Chauhan, Novoneel Chakraborty and Sudeep Nagarkar
Get our books here: https://www.flipkart.com/worldbooksday-store
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In The Quint: ‘Indians need to appreciate the rich repository of its languages’
By Mamta Aggarwal
New Delhi, April 22 (IANS) The purpose of language is to communicate, convey thoughts and bring us together. But now, at a time when languages are more often used to divide, to create an impression of superiority, to make you look like an out-of-touch elitist, “the need to begin appreciating the rich repository of languages that we have in India, is a dire need”, says versatile author Kiran Manral.
One way is greater emphasis on the use of mother tongues and more translations from this rich repository we are fortunate to possess, said the Mumbai-based writer who supplements her eight books in English — both fiction and non-fiction (on a variety of topics) — with being an activist in various spheres, a regular columnist, a Ted Talk motivational speaker and an indefatigable organiser of literary events.
“The fact remains that we are all polyglots in India and that is such a beautiful thing. All languages are born of the basic need to communicate. We have our mother tongue, and then perhaps Hindi and English. We need to begin recognising the richness of all our languages and appreciate them; perhaps no other country has so many official languages, not to mention regional languages and dialects, some of which are dying out. With each language comes its entire written culture… we have such a rich repository. We need to begin appreciating it, rather than using language to create walls between us.” Manral told IANS in an email interview.
Read the rest of the interview here
April 20, 2018
I got a little angry yesterday and I wrote a little something.
APRIL 19, 2018
BY KIRAN MANRAL
Tweet This
That’s what we do. Keep quiet. The horrors that go on #BetiBachao
It is our blinkered attitude that has led us to this point today that every single day we have cases of sexual abuse
At a press conference today, the brand ambassador for the Beti Bachao Beti Padhao mission, Amitabh Bachchan was asked his views about the heinous rapes that have shaken the country in the past month. But before I go onto what he had to say, let me jog your memory a bit, dear reader.
It is our blinkered attitude that has led us to this point today that every single day we have cases of sexual abuse
Back in September 2016, Amitabh Bachchan had a movie on the verge of release. Pink it was titled, rather subversively. Pink, after all, stood for all things girly and pretty, and vulnerable. The movie, with its rather strange shift from Mr Bachchan playing creepy stalker uncle in the first half to messiah of wronged women in the second half sought to be woke on patriarchal constructs and educate the Indian movie going public on the concept on consent. We’ve had debates on consent. Informed consent. Active consent. Enthusiastic consent. Misunderstood consent. And even ‘feeble consent,’ which we’ve had judgements delivered in rape cases on. Consent of course, feeble or otherwise, didn’t even play a part in some of the gruesome and horrific cases we’ve grappled with as a nation in the past month. Mr Bachchan even delivered a rather rousing speech on consent and female empowerment in the climax of the film, that drew much applause from the gallery.
In the run up to the release to Pink, in 2016, Mr Bachchan wrote a rather well publicised letter to his grand daughters, an empowering letter, a letter that told them to never rely on their surnames, to not worry about the log kya kahenge, to not worry about the length of their skirts, to not live in the shadow of other people’s judgement. It was a heartwarming letter indeed. It ticked off all the boxes. So what if it was part of the promotion of a film, and in its blinkered vision, completely negated the wonderful legacy of the mothers and grandmothers of these two lovely young girls, choosing to focus only the grandfathers.
We fell for it hook line and sinker. It said all the right things. It gave us feel good feels, as they say. Well, Mr Bachchan is now the ambassador for the Beti Bachao Beti Padhao mission, and given his massive reach with the population of India and his now genial public persona as the friendly host of Kaun Banega Crorepati, this makes him the ideal choice to advocate change in mindsets.
This is what it is then. Don’t talk about it. In homes, don’t tell us who is touching you in a way that disturbs us to hear it
And so it came to pass that he was asked his views at a press conference on the spate of rapes in the country recently. His reply, as the ambassador of the Beti Bachao, Beti Padhao initiative, is perhaps emblematic of all that is wrong with this country. He said, and I quote, “Even discussing this issue feels disgusting, don’t bring up this issue. It is terrible to even talk about it.”
Read the full article on SheThePeople.tv here
