MARXISM WITH MYSTICISM

U.R.Ananthamurthy, as this new anthology reveals, straddled tradition and modernity with ease

- Harish Trivedi

THE ESSENTIAL U.R. ANANTHAMURTHY

Edited by N. Manu Chakravarthy and Chandan Gowda

ALEPH BOOK COMPANY ₹899; 312 pages

U.R. Ananthamurthy (1932-2014) was a promising young academic working for his PhD in England, on leftist English fiction, when he pushed aside his dissertation to begin writing a novel-in his mother-tongue Kannada. Set largely inside an agrahara (i.e., an ultra-orthodox Brahmin neighbourhood), the novel radically interrogated the hollow but still hallowed practices concerning sin, sex, untouchability and death rites.