Why I Picked This Book?
I have already read couple of books by Perumal Murugan and liked both of his books. So when I came across this one as a suggestion in my kindle, I gladly agreed to the suggestion.
The Book
Amma is a collections of essays by the author capturing the memories of his mother. Through these essays the reader will get to know “Amma” and various facets of her personality. Although one might think that essays remembering someone’s mother would be either very emotional or too personal for a reader and why would anyone be interested in knowing the author’s mother? And that too a simple village women. But as you go through couple of essays, you find it interesting and want to know more.
The essays are very simple and mostly the memories of the author from his childhood, adulthood and later life. However with each essay you will find there are many things that you get to know, like the life style of village people, their dependence on farming and rains, the amount of work the women have to do in villages, the social structure of village and families and many more such things.
Also, with each essay one will get to know how simple pleasures of life can be enjoyed even if you are not rich and don’t have lot of money. How some of the life lessons are learned by the author from his mother, like simplicity, honesty and hard work. You will also get to know about the culture and traditions of the village where the author lives and how those traditions and cultures are saved by the villagers.
The beauty of Perumal’s writing is, it is truthful and simple. The author captures various incidents from his childhood and how his mother helped in shaping his views, not by telling but by way of doing things. The essays are more than a tribute to his mother, if one reads them carefully there are lot of things one will observe while reading.
A short and easy to read book.
About The Author
Perumal Murugan is the author of eleven novels, four collections of short stories and five anthologies of poetry in Tamil. Three of his novels translated into English— Poonachi: Or the Story of a Black Goat, Trial by Silence and A Lonely Harvest —were shortlisted for the JCB Prize for Literature in 2018 and 2019. The other six novels translated into English include Seasons of the Palm, shortlisted for the Kiriyama Prize in 2005, Pyre, Current Show and One Part Woman. He is a professor of Tamil at the Government Arts College in Attur, Salem.
Translated from Tamil by Nandini Murali and Kavitha Murlidharan
Our Verdict
A nice, short and simple read, if you like reading Perumal Murugan, you will definitely like it.
To get your own copy of Amma please click on the link below.