Review of 'Sugandhi enna Ānṭāḷ Dēvanāyaki' on 'Goodreads'
4 stars
This is a story of struggle told chiefly from the view point of woman of Tamil Ezham after they were defeated in the Lankan civil war, superimposed over a story of a queen in historical context. For me, the enjoyability of such novels depend chiefly on how true to historical circumstances the story is. For me, an important facet of this novel is its focus on the atrocities committed on tamil women by the Lankan military. As the novelist says, while Lanka is close to us (culturally and geographically), we (Keralites) are often blind to the plight of its people. It serves to remind us that it is not just in the (for us) far-flung places like Syria and Iraq that the systematic abuse of women occur, and makes us ashamed of paying scant heed.
While the novelist has done better this time compared to his previous novel [b:ഫ്രാൻസിസ് ഇട്ടിക്കോര …
This is a story of struggle told chiefly from the view point of woman of Tamil Ezham after they were defeated in the Lankan civil war, superimposed over a story of a queen in historical context. For me, the enjoyability of such novels depend chiefly on how true to historical circumstances the story is. For me, an important facet of this novel is its focus on the atrocities committed on tamil women by the Lankan military. As the novelist says, while Lanka is close to us (culturally and geographically), we (Keralites) are often blind to the plight of its people. It serves to remind us that it is not just in the (for us) far-flung places like Syria and Iraq that the systematic abuse of women occur, and makes us ashamed of paying scant heed.
While the novelist has done better this time compared to his previous novel [b:ഫ്രാൻസിസ് ഇട്ടിക്കോര Francis Itty Cora|11295292|ഫ്രാൻസിസ് ഇട്ടിക്കോര Francis Itty Cora|T.D. Ramakrishnan|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1468174203s/11295292.jpg|16222792], this novel too suffers from an insufficient connection between the story line, and the historical story of a heroine that the story is superimposed on.