The Wall

Drawing its narrative strength from several folk forms, Sowmya Aji's novel is an engrossing amalgam of intense love, jealousy, revenge and unrealised dreams. The reader is transported to another world, one both like and unlike ours, where the presence of the titular wall is as real as it is metaphorical. -Vivek Shanbhagxml: namespace prefix = "o" ns = "urn: schemas-microsoft-com: office: office" / A stone wall at the periphery of a village somewhere in Karnataka guards a dangerous mystery. Yet, four generations of women from the headman's family - helpless and spirited, headstrong and weak with desire - have a wayward fascination with it. And with Annaiah who comes, some say, from across the wall. Tradition and subversion coexist with superstitions and the slow advent of modernity in this powerful novel where time is a wilful beast and the gods walk among us.