Moustache
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WINNER OF THE JCB PRIZE FOR LITERATURE 2020.
'A novel of epic dimensions ... easily among the most accomplished fictional works in Malayalam.'K. SATCHIDANANDAN
Vavachan is a Pulayan who gets the opportunity to play a policeman with an immense moustache in a musical drama. The character appears in only two scenes and has no dialogue. However, Vavachan's performance, and his moustache, terrify the mostly upper-caste audience, reviving in them memories of characters of Dalit power, such as Ravanan. Afterwards, Vavachan, whose people were traditionally banned from growing facial hair, refuses to shave off his moustache. Endless tales invent and reinvent the legend of his magic moustache in which birds roost, which allows its owner to appear simultaneously in different places and disappear in an instant, which grows as high as the sky and as thick as rainclouds -- and turn Vavachan into Moustache, a figure of mythic proportions.Set in Kuttanad, a below-sea-level farming region on the south-west coast of Kerala, the novel is as much a story of this land as it is of Vavachan and its other inhabitants. As they navigate the intricate waterscape, stories unfold in which ecology, power dynamics and politics become key themes. Originally published in Malayalam as Meesha, S. Hareesh's Moustache is a contemporary classic mixing magic, myth and metaphor into a tale of far-reaching resonance.
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S. HAREESH is the author of two novels and three short story collections. His novel Meesha won the Kerala Sahitya Akademi Award, the Vayalar Award and the Deshabhimani Award; and its English translation Moustache (translated by Jayasree Kalathil) won the 2020 JCB Prize for Literature. His short story collections include 'Adam', which received the Kerala Sahitya Akademi Award, Rasavidyayude Charithram, and Appan. He is also a recipient of the Geetha Hiranyan Endowment, the Thomas Mundassery Prize and the V.P. Sivakumar Memorial Prize. Hareesh hails from Neendoor in Kottayam district, Kerala.
Jayasree Kalathil is the author of The Sackclothman, a children's book that has been translated into Malayalam, Telugu and Hindi. Her translations from Malayalam have won the JCB Prize for Literature, the Crossword Book Award for Translation, the V. Abdulla Memorial Translation Award, Jury Commendation from Muse India-GSP Rao Translation Award, and been shortlisted for the American Literary Translators Association National Translation Award. In 2024, her translation of Sandhya Mary's Maria, Just Maria brought her the Crossword Book Award for the second time and a third appearance in the shortlist for the JCB Prize for Literature. As part of the global effort #readpalestine, she has translated Palestinian poetry into Malayalam, including works by Mosab Abu Toha, Mahmoud Darwish, Refaat Alareer, Hiba Abu Nada and Samih al-Qasim.Originally from Kottakkal in Malappuram district, Kerala, Jayasree currently lives in the New Forest in Hampshire, UK.
