A Kitchen in the Corner of the House

A Kitchen in the Corner of the House | Ambai

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I loved In a Forest, a Deer, a collection of stories by Ambai published in India. This collection of 20 stories by Archipelago contains 8 stories that appeared in Forest. These stories about the life of Tamil women cast a spell on me. They are quiet; like the ebb & flow of a calm river in a serene forest, but contain so much intelligence & heart, with unusual female characters. I love her writing & its references to Hindu myth & Tamil classics. ⬇️

batsy After reading Jenny Odell's How to Do Nothing, I've become a bit more attentive to how writers write their (human) characters & how they see the world. Ambai's melancholy, poignant, yet life-affirming stories are very attuned to their landscape & to nature. Thoughtful women in her stories are always seeing things differently from everyone else, feeling differently, & attempting a life on their own terms. Beautiful writing. #netgalley
5y

Cathythoughts Beautiful description of this book ✨✨✨✨✨✨ 5y

TrishB Beautiful review 💜 5y

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batsy @Cathythoughts @TrishB Thanks, friends 😘😘 I'm happy that so much translated fiction is available to us now ❤️ 5y

saresmoore What an insightful review! This sounds wonderful. 5y

erzascarletbookgasm This review is gorgeous! 👏✨ 5y

batsy @saresmoore @erzascarletbookgasm Thanks 😘😘 I love the feeling I get when I read her 🥰 5y

Tanisha_A Brilliant review! Need to read more of translated literature. ❤️ 5y

Centique Yay - I have her other book to read too thanks to your recc! BTW I was chatting to a mum at kids basketball - I‘ve spent summer chatting to her at cricket too - started talking books and then life - turns out she is Tamil and spent some of her childhood in Sri Lanka and experienced civil war 😬 She‘s going to lend me some books about it which is such a great entry into this topic for me 🙌 (I had Sri Lanka as a TBR topic last year) 5y

batsy @Tanisha_A Thank you, lovely 💜 I finally took Tamil classes to be able to read it after years of neglect (for shame!) but my comprehension level is nowhere near reading a whole novel, sadly. But maybe I could start with short stories 😁 5y

batsy @Centique Oh, that's really interesting! I'd love to know which books you'll read. Our grandparents left ahead of the civil war. It's left a massive mark on the country and the people 😞 One of the books I should read but is still tbr is this

The Seasons of Trouble: Life Amid the Ruins of Sri Lanka's Civil War

batsy @Centique I read this and it was pretty harrowing

The Cage: The Fight for Sri Lanka and the Last Days of the Tamil Tigers

Centique @batsy thanks for those reccs. I never put it together that your family came from there. Gosh, my heart goes out to them. 💕I‘m amazed at how little I know about it given that it is so recent. I‘ll post any books that Kavitha lends me - her dad is a professor and she says he has lots of books he can lend me too. Best kind of a TBR explosion going on ☺️ 5y

batsy @Centique Yes indeed 🙂 5y

BiblioLitten I love Ambai‘s writing too. 💕 5y

batsy @BiblioLitten It's really special ❤️ 5y

RohitSawant This sounds so wonderful. Lovely review! 5y

batsy @rohit-sawant Thank you, Rohit! She's a wonderful writer and my Tamil comprehension being pretty basic, I'm so glad to be able to read her in translation (though I hope to read her in the original someday 🙌🏽) 5y

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