The Curse Stories

The book is so beautiful and was delivered in such a nice condition I'm so satisfied. Than you Amazon for such a lovely delivery. The print is of supreme quality and pages are fabulous. I'm so glad for this product.

Loved reading this story collection by Salma. The stories are all short rather than long, but hard hitting nonetheless. Salma brings to forefront the experience of being a woman and explores the psyche of her characters through their external behavior. Definitely recommended.

A month ago, I had zero idea that Salma would become one of my favourite Indian writers. I read and reviewed her new novel, recently out in an English translation done by Meena Kandasamy, only last week. I had liked it a lot but little did I know at that point just how much more she would shine in these brilliant short stories. I was completely enthralled, to say least. I did not expect to love them so much. I am yet to draw up a final best fiction of the year list but this has a very strong chance of appearing on it. If not there, then definitely in the honourable mentions. I have a hard time really liking Indian translated fiction because it tends to be socio-realist and the language is usually simple. While Moustache was an exception I didn't like it for other reasons. Salma's prose maybe straightforward, but her imagination is unmatched.The Curse was first published in 2012 and is different from this English version. N Kalyan Raman, who has done an absolutely superb job at translation, picked three stories from the original collection and has included five Salma's later stories, making a total of eight in this 'new' collection. He points out her use of a "direct and forceful style" in her fiction and poetry. In my view, it is exactly this that which makes her writing so evocative and effective. I also have to point out the sheer originality in her plots."On the Edge" follows two elderly women who despise each other on a doctor's trip and an uncomfortable car journey. "Trap" is about a woman paralysed with anxiety, afraid of late night visitors with dire messages, and can't sleep. "The Curse" delves into a dark family history manifesting as madness in the women soon after their marriage. "Toilets", delightfully scatological, has a woman recount how access to such a necessary thing was regulated all her life. In "Black Beads and Television", a woman gets drawn in by the lure of TVs with disastrous results. "Childhood" is about a prematurely married woman with kids rethinking her past and the roads not travelled. In "Atonement" past mistakes come in the form of recurring dreams and ghostly visitations. Finally, "The Orbit of Confusion" is structured as a letter from a daughter to her mother that explores the complicated feelings in a familial bond.Salma acutely foregrounds body politics and feminine interiority in her stories. Women are always at the centre, their bodies intertwined in discourse around religion, freedom, desire, pleasure, and shame. She does not shy away from things others might deem indecent and wrong Salma's writing is unconventional and subversive in the way she interrogates social norms and regulations, questions orthodoxy. Her richly realized characters carve out a life for themselves, working within the limits set on them and alwaysstretching their bounds. I am very glad that I managed to read two of her books this year. I will be getting myself a copy of her debut novel as soon as possible & I eagerly await whatever she writes next.

The stories touch the heart

I had read about Salma in magazines and papers. The reviews also praised this collection of stories. So I bought it. I have wasted my money. The print is easy on the eye and paper quality is also good. But that is all. The stories have no real substance, no great characterisation, nothing of interest. It's a waste of time and money.

Writing is an extremely political act, says poet-activist Salma, who writes about Tamil Muslim rural women and the body politics that governs their physical, mental and sexual health and autonomy.A curse could be many things. It can be a supernatural jinx on a family with a dark history, wherein two generations ago the men committed a crime and now the women must pay the price, the way women always do for the crimes of men (the title story). Or it can be just the ordinary lived experiences of women such as menstruation, pregnancy, infertility or abortion or even the simple act of going to the toilet when there is no toilet in the house, or just one, and a woman must go without being seen or do her business without being heard. It could be the mental health issues of women unmarried, unhappily married or widowed or deprived of freedoms that men don’t think twice about. What curses, supernatural or ordinary, befall upon a woman in a patriarchal society which demands everything from her is what makes up this collection of short stories translated from Tamil by N. Kalyan Raman.Salma, whose personal story of getting her writings out in the world is so inspiring that I urge you to read about it, writes in a manner so direct and incisive that the effect is nothing short of visceral. One can feel the suffocation of an overcrowded car, smell a menstrual rag being washed and hear the silent implosion in the head of a person going mad.