Here's a fine selection of Alexander Raju's stories written over thirty
years-ranging between the stories of a tyro giving expression to his
idealistic perspective of the world and the society he lives in and
intensely feels about, and those of a cynical angry man in quarrel with
the world and its ways. They are poles apart also in the sense that the
stories do not belong to any particular school: they range from humorous
musings on the stupidity of men and women of his social milieu to harsh
diatribes against the many evils rampant in his society. The most
emotionally appealing are the author's renditions of the plight of the
helpless female, sexually exploited by the male-dominated society. They
are particularly poignant since they fictionalize not any feminist idea,
but everyday reality we witness in our quotidian existence. Despite the
universality of their themes, these stories falling under different
heads have one binding chord: they relate to the social realities of
Kerala, the south Indian state.
About the Author:
Alexander Raju, an Indian English poet, novelist, short story writer and
columnist, has many books to his credit. Ripples and Pebbles (1989),
Sprouts of Indignation (2003) and Magic Chasm (2007) are collections
of his poems. His first novel The Haunted Man came out in 1997 and its
second edition in 2009. Upon This Bank and Shoal, a philosophical
novel, came out in 2008. The Psycho-Social Interface in British
Fiction (2000) is a critical work. The Voice of Ethiopia and Other
Pieces of Literature, an edited work came out in 2008.
