The Thinnai - Book Review
Picked this up on a whim at the Chennai airport earlier this year. I was intrigued by the story of how the book ended up getting translated. It was originally written in French by Ari Gautier and translated to English by Blake Smith. Ari commented on Blake's essay. He expressed irritation as it failed to mention current francophone writers and only mentioned the writer whose work Blake had just translated. What followed was a series of interactions that ended up with this masterpiece. The book retains many Tamil words like thinnai, kaili, vaatiyar, suruttu etc. which gives it an authentic feel. The characters are only referenced by their nick-names – Joseph One-and-a-half eyes ( he squinted ), Three-balls six-faces ( he had 3 balls ), Emile Kozhukattai-head ( his head was like a watermelon ), Killer Widow ( she supposedly murdered her husband ) etc. Having mean, hilarious nicknames is a common phenomenon in Indian households with everyone forgetting your actual name because nobod