Suniti Namjoshi – författare

Once she had reconciled herself to the view that a garden snake, however beautiful, was not evil, Suniti decided to set about the matter in a more businesslike way. She put an ad in the paper: ‘Elderly gentlewoman seeks to make a bargain with the devil’. Where are good and evil to be found? What is the path to sainthood? Is it through poetry or good deeds? St Suniti talks to angels and flowers, dragons, saints and ordinary people in her quest. Suniti Namjoshi has original imagination full of surprises encompassing saints and wolves, Beowulf and Bangladesh, Grendel and Star Trek.‘It’s hilarious, witty, elegantly written, hugely inventive, fantastic, energetic, up to the minute, analytic, touching…

Every retelling of a myth is a reworking of it. Every hearing or reading of a myth is a recreation of it. It is only when we engage with a myth that it resonates, becomes charged and recharged with meaning. And so it is in Building Babel, a book that re-engages with myth through the cyberworld, where worlds intersect and are transformed.

What do you do when you fall in love with your next-door neighbour? You peer at each other through a hole in the fence and eventually climb over. Sybil is a member of The Good-Hearted Gardeners, a Society for Well-Meaning Efforts for the Betterment of Language and the Salvation of the Planet, which her lover, Demo, is allowed to join. It’s funded by MI5, who ask them to monetise and weaponise the English language. Soon afterwards they discover that English is even more widespread than anyone had thought. Even the birds and the fish, the cows and the kangaroos can speak it – when they choose. The Good-Hearted Gardeners set about trying to talk to anyone – crows, magpies, robins, goldfish, cows, horses, rats, mice – who will talk to them. With climate change and technology gone mad, what’s in store is a frightening scenario that threatens everyone – humans, animals, plants. Can the headlong rush to extinction be halted? When the birds, and the cows and the horses and the mice and all the rest come together, much is made possible. But at what cost? Will the planet and its inhabitants be saved? A comedic allegory for our future.

In this exquisite elegy, Suniti Namjoshi reflects on the life of her sister Bharati, their overlapping yet disparate lives, their nearness and distance, and what it means to belong and to be valued.The two sisters love one another and they love birds; but they live on different continents and think in different languages. Is this what sisterhood is really about – to acknowledge difference and still to understand and to care?This richly textured book with its tender and elegant language is full of both joy and grief. It is a generous yet poignant invitation from the author to us to contemplate our own experiences.

Fábulas feministas es una antología de Suniti Namjoshi, traducida al español por las escritoras mexicanas Ave Barrera y Lola Horner, donde se reúne la obra más destacada de la poeta y fabulista india. Estos son algunos de los títulos que conforman al libro: Fábulas feministas (1981), Conversaciones de la vaca (1985), Fábulas de la burra azul (1988), Las madres del Maya Diip (1989), Goja: un mito autobiográfico (2000) y Sycorax (2006); además, la recopilación de textos remata con un vistazo al trabajo más reciente e inédito de la autora.Considerado por muchos un clásico del feminismo poscolonial, Fábulas feministas replantea y cuestiona el discurso misógino y sexista de la literatura clásica (oriental y occidental). Dicho cometido es logrado a través de alegorías, intercambio de roles en los personajes, exageración y ridiculización de conductas, y el uso de parábolas.Fábulas feministas es un libro hospitalario que recibe a toda clase de ojos curiosos, especialmente a aquellos interesados en descubrir un mensaje de reconciliación, equidad y respeto hacia la vida de los otros. Es una lectura que remueve, que indigna, pero que también libera: de culpas y de rencores. Parafraseando a Suniti, estas fábulas son acerca de usar el poder del lenguaje para exponer lo absurdo y lo inaceptable.

Aditi and friends set out to help the twins Roshan and Rohit who live in London. The River Thames has been poisoned and they are shocked to find out that a River Dragon is dying in its waters.

A modern fairytale about an ant, an elephant, a monkey and a girl, who set out to tame a supposedly fiery dragon.

InSuki,Suniti Namjoshi weaves a witty and delightful tapestry from threads of longing, loss, memory, metaphor, and contemplation. Taken as a whole, the picture she draws is a stunning evocation of the love and friendship shared between herself and her super cat, Suki, a lilac Burmese. Suki suggests that she could be a goddess, and Namjoshi her high priestess. Namjoshi declines, but as they discuss the merits of vegetarianism, the meaning of happiness, war, morality, or just daily life, it becomes clear that the bond between them is a deep and complex one. Namjoshi figures the days of Suki's life as leaves, which fall vividly but irrevocably into time's stream and are recollected with a wild tenderness by a grieving Namjoshi, who learns through the discipline of meditation how to lose what is most loved. One of the most distinctive lesbian-feminist voices of the late twentieth century, Suniti Namjoshi, best known for her many poems and fables, is highly respected as one of the pioneers of women's writing in India. This beautiful narrative, both memoir and elegy, offers solace and celebration to everyone who has felt the trust that passes between a person and a beloved creature.

"Why didn't you save the world?" This is the Sprite's cry. Meanwhile, Aesop tries to save his skin, make up his fables, and just live his life. Given the pitfalls of human nature, are these fables some kind of instruction manual for staying out of trouble? What about morals, reform, and the castigation of social evils? As she nags and cajoles Aesop, Sprite--along with the reader--begins to wonder how much power the writer truly has in the world. Foxy Aesop offers a virtuoso display of how one can use the building blocks of a fable in a variety of ways. It is witty, it is satirical, and the Sprite herself is a comical figure. However, when she must return to her own time at the book's end--that is, to our time in our broken world--her central question suddenly seems less absurd and far more urgent. Eccentric, darkly comic, and wryly amusing, Suniti Namjoshi's fable will surprise and delight any fans of Angela Carter or Margaret Atwood.