Kamala, a beautiful, self-possessed and fiercely independent widow, comes to a village, where she has been given a job on compassionate grounds, with her two daughters. She meets the narrator for the first time at a phone booth, and almost immediately, becomes the object of his lonely, consuming passion. He’s a drifter, educated but jobless, low on self-esteem, and his love will become a derangement. He will seek debasement, he will rage and inflict violence, and eventually set in motion a desperate plan that might destroy both Kamala and him.
Translated with brilliant skill from the Tamil original—En Kathe—this is a compelling and unsettling study of obsession. It is an unforgettable work by one of India’s finest and most powerful writers.