| Language | English |
|---|---|
| ISBN-10 | 0-14-306184-4 |
| ISBN-13 | 978-0143061847 |
| No of pages | 283 |
| Font Size | Medium |
| Book Publisher | Penguin India |
| Published Date | 13 May 2006 |
About Author
One of the most significant modernist writer in Marathi writer and English, Vilas Sarang has written remarkable short stories, poems, a novel and also brilliant pieces of criticism in his first language Marathi as well as in English.
His Marathi short story collections are 'Soledad' (1975) and 'A tank' (1999) and translations of his stories in English are collected in 'A Fair Tree of the Void' (1990) and more recently `The Women in the Cages' (2006).
A selection of his short stories also appeared in French translation in 1988. His English novel 'The Dinosaur Ship'(2005) and his Marathi novel is `Enrich Rajya'.
His Marathi collection of poems is published under the title Kavita 1969-1984 and his collection of English poems is published as 'A Kind of Silence'(1978) and recently he has brought out ` Another Life'.
He has also written significant criticism in Marathi 'Sisyphus ani Balaka' and 'Ashwagandha Sharma Keli'(2000).
He has also published The Stylistics of Literary Translation ( 1988 ) and edited the anthology Indian English Poetry Since 1950 ( 1989. He has also edited reputed literary journals like the Bombay Review and The Post Post Review.
He holds a Ph. D. in English from Bombay University and another in comparative literature from Indiana University.
He taught at the University of Basra in Iraq during the 1970s, became Professor of English and Chair of the Department of English at Bombay University in the eighties, and he has also taught at Kuwait University. He lives in Mumbai
The quest for primitive source of human existence is an important feature of his writings. His short stories are often surreal and have often been compared to Kafka. For instance, in one of his stories collected in The Women in Cages, the narrator finds himself transformed into a gigantic phallus.
In another more well known story, a person named Chaco is marooned on an island where women have either upper half of their bodies or the lower half.
Sarang is avowedly anti-representational modernist in his aesthetics and provides a refreshing alternative to over-hyped `diaspora' and `exiled' non-resident Indian English writers like Salman Rushdie, VS Naipaul and Kiran Desai.
Related Books
‘Sarang is an original: he writes clearly and beautifully about often bizarre events in a precisely realized world’—Anthony Thwaite, poet and former editor of Encounter With his debut collection of short stories in English, Fair Tree of the Void (1990), Vilas Sarang established himself as a writer of great gifts, and one with a unique sensibility and literary vision.
His works since—in Marathi and English—have confirmed his reputation as one of India’s finest and most daring contemporary writers. The Women in Cages brings together all his short stories written in English, both previously published and new, brilliantly highlighting his singular imagination and style.
From the desecration of a funeral pyre by the simple act of warming one’s hands on the blaze to the transformation of a man into a gigantic phallus enticing crowds of devotees as a live symbol of Lord Shiva; from the prostitute who uses the occult to generate numerous vaginas all over her body to a military general who abolishes an entire season for fear of revolution,
Sarang presents startling thematic variety, always suggestive of strange and haunting alternative universes that transcend time and space. Gritty and disturbing, and leavened by wit and compassion, The Women in Cages is a masterful attempt at capturing the myriad nuances of modern life. ‘One of the finest Indian writers of his time’ —Dom Morae’s