Not Flowers of Henna

The Hindu, Literary Review

(Sunday, 1 April, 2007)

TWO months after his death, Katha has come out with a translation of 15 short stories penned by Kamleshwar in a literary career that began in 1946. Though the collection has been in the making for sometime now, it was hastened after his death in January this year.

All fresh translations by Jai Ratan, the collection is testimony to Kalmeshwar's belief that "life is not made up of a sequence of big catastrophes, but is woven out of the warp and woof of small everyday experiences". And, in each experience lies a story — be it as a signboard painter, night watchman, and scriptwriter for All India Radio or editor of a literary magazine. Only it requires a good narrator.

With 200 short stories, 10 novels, several film scripts including "Aandhi", "Mausam" and "Mr. Natwarlal", besides reams of editorial writing to his name, this collection is only representative of the corpus of work written by Kamleshwar.

For further details, go here.

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