Press Release

HarperCollins Publishers India is delighted to announce Valli: A Novel by Sheela Tomy Translated from the Malayalam by Jayasree Kalathil

Publishing under the prestigious Harper Perennial imprint in July 2022

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‘Sweeping, filled with fiery passion, Valli is one of the most powerful novels I’ve read in the last few decades. Sheela Tomy has given us a soaring and unforgettable song of the earth, a magnificent and wrenching story of four generations in Wayanad, but also a book shot through with the murmuring, stifled but always resurgent voices of the forest and the land itself. Jayasree Kalathil’s luminescent translation brings this world, fertile in legends, tales and gods, bloodstained and betrayed but enduring, to vivid life. “Valli” can mean vines, or the earth itself, and this beautiful and shattering novel will take you into the heart of the hills and jungles of South India, and leave you transformed, in the manner of books like Richard Powers’ The Overstory and Barbara Kingsolver’s The Poisonwood Bible. There are books you love, and books that change you – Valli was both for me.’

– Nilanjana S. Roy, author of The Wildings

Valli is the story of Wayanad, in which it is not a piece of land but an ecosystem of social, political and ecological violence. “Valli” in Malayalam means land, plant, young woman and daily wages, and it is intriguing how the novel brilliantly metaphorizes Wayanad as “valli”, weaving the multilayered tales of land, women, forest and the downtrodden to create an amazing forest of allegory. Never before has a work of fiction been so successful in capturing the wholeness of Wayanad, delving into its past and present, characterizing its flora and fauna, illustrating its social complexity and dissecting its political kinetics. Jayasree’s translation is lush and luxuriant, an alluring “valli” on its own merits.’

– K.R. Meera, author of Hangwoman

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High in the Western Ghats in northern Kerala is a land of mist and mystery, of forests and folklore, rich with the culture of its indigenous people, the Adivasis. Its old name was Bayalnad – land of the paddy fields – but it would come to be known as Wayanad.

 

Its resources attracted outsiders – traders, colonialists, migrants from the lowlands, and eventually, the timber and tourist industries. Exploitation of the forest led to the exploitation and enslavement of its people, and as the forest dwindled, so did the Adivasis’ culture, their way of life, even their language. But these were not changes quietly and willingly accepted; Wayanad became a key centre of direct action and uprising, and a stronghold for the Naxalite movement.

 

Spanning the time between the 1970s and the present, Valli is a tale of four generations who made this land their home. It is told through a diary that Susan – the daughter of two teachers, Thommichan and Sara, who eloped to Wayanad so that they could live together – leaves for her own daughter, Tessa.

 

And in telling their story, Valli tells us stories of the land and its people, of interdependence and abuse, repression and resistance, despair and contentment – stories as vast and magical as the forest itself once was.

 

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Sheela Tomy, author, says: ‘Set in a forest village in the Western Ghats, Valli tells the story of the transformation of the land and its people over generations. Narrating the tale of oppression and resistance, Valli unfolds the mysteries of forest where truth and lies, myths and history, mingle inseparably together.’

 

Translator, Jayasree Kalathil, adds: ‘Sometimes translators cannot walk away after reading a story. Its characters refuse to leave, demand to be taken into worlds beyond their existence. Valli is such a story. Vast and magical as the forest itself was once, Valli tells the story of a land and its people, oppressed and silenced by human greed, on the brink of an environmental disaster. And yet, it is a story of remembrance, of love and hope, of resistance, everything that the world needs right now.’

 

Rahul Soni, Executive Editor – Literary, says: ‘Once in a while, once in a very, very long while, there comes a novel that reaffirms your faith in fiction, in its possibilities, in its power, in its continuing relevance in the face of all that we are witnessing in the world. Sheela Tomy’s Valli is one of them. Although it is set in Wayanad, a veritable Garden of Eden once, and depicts its fall from innocence and grace over generations, a fall brought upon it by human greed – it tells us a story that is universal, and a story that is essential and urgent, a story that we all need to listen to – our survival depends on it. Yet it is also a story full of beauty and love, and a story full of hope. And Jayasree Kalathil – already one of our finest translators – has outdone herself in rendering this many-layered and magical tale into English. It is a privilege to be able to publish this work, a work which is destined to become a classic and be read for generations to come.’

 

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About the Author: Sheela Tomy is a novelist, short story writer and scriptwriter. Valli is her debut novel, for which she was awarded the Cherukad Award for Malayalam Literature in 2020. She is also the author of a short story collection, Melquíadesnte Pralayapusthakam (Melquíades’s Book of Floods), published in 2012. Sheela has won several awards for her short stories, including the Abu Dhabi Arangu Award (2007), the Puzha.com Short Story Award (2008), the Doha Sanskriti Award (2012), the Doha Samanwayam Award (2012) and the Kamala Surayya ‘Neermathalam’ Award UAE (2014). Born in Mananthavadi in Wayanad district, Sheela currently resides in Doha, Qatar. Her second novel, Aa Nadiyodu Peru Chodikkaruthu (Do Not Ask the River Her Name), is set to be published later this year.

 

About the translator: Jayasree Kalathil shared the JCB Prize for Literature in 2020 with S. Hareesh for her translation of his novel, Moustache. She received the Crossword Book Award for Indian Language Translation in 2019 for her translation of N. Prabhakaran’s Diary of a Malayali Madman, which was also longlisted for the Mathrubhumi Book of the Year Award. She is the author of The Sackclothman, a children’s novel that has been translated into Malayalam, Telugu and Hindi. Her other translations include Theeyoor Chronicles by N. Prabhakaran and Adam by S. Hareesh.

 

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About Harper Perennial:

 

Harper Perennial is a dedicated imprint for translations, showcasing the finest and most compelling narratives from Indian languages – books that are timeless and stories that capture the essence of their times and the region from which they emanate. In its entirety, the Perennial library which features well over a hundred titles presents the kaleidoscope of India as seen through the eyes of the greatest modern writers writing in the local languages, comprising award-winning and well-loved novels, short fiction, poetry, plays, memoirs, biographies and travelogues.

 

In the recent past, Harper Perennial has published a select list of titles in translation that readers have enjoyed – including S. Hareesh’s JCB Prize winning Moustache (translated from the Malayalam by Jayasree Kalathil), Jayant Kaikini’s DSC Prize winning No Presents Please (translated from the Kannada by Tejaswini Niranjana), Jnanpith awardee U.R. Ananthamurthy’s novel Avasthe (translated from the Kannada by Narayan Hegde), JCB awardee Benyamin’s novel Body and Blood (translated from the Malayalam by Swarup B.R.), the Crossword Book Award winning Diary of a Malayali Madman by N. Prabhakaran (translated from the Malayalam by Jayasree Kalathil), Vinod Kumar Shukla’s Blue Is Like Blue (translated from the Hindi by Arvind Krishna Mehrotra and Sara Rai) which won the Atta Galata–Bangalore Lit Fest Award for Best Fiction of the year as well as the Mathrubhumi Book of the Year Award, and many others.

 

About HarperCollins Publishers India:

 

HarperCollins India publishes some of the finest writers from the Indian Subcontinent and around the world, publishing approximately 200 new books every year, with a print and digital catalogue of more than 2,000 titles across 10 imprints. Its authors have won almost every major literary award including the Man Booker Prize, JCB Prize, DSC Prize, New India Foundation Award, Atta Galatta Prize, Shakti Bhatt Prize, Gourmand Cookbook Award, Publishing Next Award, Tata Literature Live! Award, Gaja Capital Business Book Prize, BICW Award, Sushila Devi Award, Sahitya Akademi Award and Crossword Book Award. HarperCollins India also represents some of the finest publishers in the world including Harvard University Press, Gallup Press, Oneworld, Bonnier Zaffre, Usborne, Dover and Lonely Planet. HarperCollins India is now the recipient of five Publisher of the Year Awards – in 2021 and 2015 at the Publishing Next Industry Awards, and in 2021, 2018 and 2016 at Tata Literature Live. HarperCollins India is a subsidiary of HarperCollins Publishers.

 

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