One day before he is assassinated, Gandhi steps out of Birla House into newly independent Delhi, wanting his approaching death to be a final, redemptive message; Sasi begins to clean up the crime scene after her lover leaves to arrange for the disposal of her husband’s body, but suddenly the wall clock begins to tick backwards, setting off a dramatic reversal of events; resurrected from death by her brother, Nallathangaal roams the forests with her seven children for decades until the love of a carousel man frees her from the curse; Cheenu returns to his beloved wife to find that the years of warped urges in jail have changed him irrevocably.Farewell, Mahatma brings together ten tales that introduce us to the brilliance and distinctiveness of Devibharathi’s imagination and craft. These stories explore the dark and dichotomous realities of our history and present, our social and individual lives, probing themes such as freedom, need, desire and the volatile spaces between man and woman. At once unnerving and illuminating, this is short fiction at its best.

About the Author

Devibharathi has worked as a political activist, government employee, journalist, managing editor of a leading literary magazine and scriptwriter for television programmes. He has published two collections of his short stories, a novel, a play, and two nonfiction anthologies containing essays and memoirs. He is currently at work on his second novel. Farewell, Mahatma is his first work of fiction in English translation. N. Kalyan Raman is a well-known translator of contemporary Tamil fiction and poetry, based in Chennai. He has so far published six books of Tamil fiction in English translation.