‘With [Snowed Under] our expat writer Nirmala has gifted the Malayalam language with one of the most original creations in the field of the modern Malayalam novel.’—Paul Zacharia
‘No other Malayalam novel has recreated the struggles of surviving cancer with such imaginative force and intensity.’—Dr Shaji Jacob, professor and literary critic
Ashwini Ram is a successful engineer in Canada. She has a good job, a loving husband and daughter, and a carefully planned life. Then, one snow-choked winter day, she discovers a tiny lump in her right breast.
What follows is a journey she never expected to take: doctor’s visits, tests, the shock of diagnosis, surgery, chemotherapy, radiation. Her body changes. Her moods change. Her husband retreats into a silence she cannot reach, her daughter grows distant in the demands of her medical studies, and even friends who once couldn’t do without her now appear to be keeping their distance. Ashwini’s thoughts spiral in directions she cannot always control as fear, anger, denial, loneliness, imaginary friends and dark humour take turns shaping her empty days.
Set against the cold landscapes of Canada and the quiet routines of immigrant life, Snowed Under captures the emotional reality of living with cancer—the waiting, the medical procedures, the stigma that surrounds the illness and the strain it places on the closest relationships.
First published as Manjil Oruval, this is not just a story about disease, but about the mind under pressure, the body under siege, and the complicated—some?times fragile—will to live. Radhika P. Menon’s sensitive English translation brings this powerful and unusual Malayalam novel to a wider readership.