In The Curse, acclaimed author and poet Salma blasts through the artifice of genre and language to reveal the messy, vulnerable and sometimes beautiful realities of being a woman in deeply patriarchal societies. Loosely rooted in the rural Muslim communities of Tamil Nadu, these stories shine a light on the complex dramas governing the daily lives of most women as they move through the world.
‘[Kalyan] Raman’s translation is perceptive: Tamil idioms are translated with a keen eye for affect; moments of vulnerability and anxiety are rendered empathetically; the language flows effortlessly.’ Yashasvi Arunkumar in Scroll.in
‘The stories, the situations the women in the stories they are placed in, the claustrophobic world they find in, all of them comes alive in the translation making this book a must read.’ Chitra Ahanthem in Imphal Reviews
Salma is a writer of Tamil poetry and fiction. She has published three volumes of poetry. Her novel, Irandam Jaamanalln Kadhai, revolving around the lives of a women in a Muslim community in Tamil Nadu, was considered a landmark achievement in Tamil. It was later translated into English as The Hours Past Midnight (2009) by Lakshmi Holmstrom. Salma has also published a collection of short stories, Sabam (2012), and a second novel, Manamiyangal (2016). These were translated into English respectively as The Curse: Stories (by N Kalyan Raman) and Women, Dreaming (by Meena Kandasamy), both in 2020. She was the recipient of the fourth Mahakavi Kanhaiyalal Sethia award for poetry in 2019. A political activist for women’s empowerment, Salma was Chairperson of Tamilnadu Government’s Social Welfare Board during 2007-11. She lives and works in Chennai.
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