Perumal Murugan is a name that will not be familiar to most – although those of my fellow Indians who follow the news a little bit more intensely would have seen the name recently, and for all the wrong reasons.  I, too only heard the name last week. On January 11th, an FB friend posted this article with a congratulatory post to the translator (Aniruddhan Vasudevan) who she obviously knew. While the story seemed interesting, the news of the agitations against the book were a little disturbing. ANd all this in the shadow of the global focus on freedom of speech!! I looked up the book, and put it on my ‘to read’ list.

This morning, I learn from the newspaper that Mr Murugan has quit writing!!  This increased my resolve to get the book immediately.   And both my usual sources, Flipkart and Amazon, had only the e-book, the book…