Out In The Moonlight

A little boy runs excitedly in the darkness, lit only by the light of a bright, bright moon. He is going with his mother and baby brother to the millet fields. The walk there is long, through a thorny forest, with the lurking fear of snakes. As his mother works, he makes the most of the moonlit night with his newfound friend, a stray dog, and his brother sleeps ...
                                                                                                                                                              It takes an exceptional writer like Perumal Murugan to narrate this vignette from his own life, evocatively and unsentimentally. In doing so, it becomes a cameo that captures many realities, especially a different kind of childhood. Mood-filled illustrations bring the unfamiliar close to a young reader in a nightscape redolent with anticipation and danger, to frame the portrait of a mother for whom tending her family and fields is a way of life.                                                                                                                                                                         Born into a family of farmers, PERUMAL MURUGAN was the first in his family to receive an education. Writing from an early age, his very first short story was published in a Tamil literary magazine. He has been prolific since, and is today, an award-winning author, poet and academic, with an abiding interest in literature specific to Tamil Nadu's Kongunadu region from where he comes. His writings reflect the everyday, set in the milieus he knows best - villages and small towns - yet they travel far beyond through English translations to a wide readership and acclaim.

Available in:

• English

Author: Perumal Murugan
Illustrator: Ashok Rajagopalan
Publisher: Tulika

Format:

• Paperback