Brinda Charry
Biography of Brinda Charry :
Brinda Charry is the author of the acclaimed novel Hottest Day of the Year. She is two-time winner of the Katha Award for Creative Fiction and has also won prizes in the Asian Age Short Story Competition, the Hindu-Picador Short Story Competition, and the Commonwealth Broadcasting Association Short Story Competition. The author teaches Renaissance literature and fiction writing at at Keene State College in New Hampshire.
Brinda Charry is a self-confessed loner, a bit of a cynic and a die-hard romantic. Her short stories have won several prizes while her two novels – The Hottest Day Of The Year and Naked In The Wind – have garnered critical acclaim. The reclusive New England-based wordsmith’s fiction often returns to the city of Bangalore where she grew up. Her novels are full of conflict. In fact, the narratives unfold amidst traumatic family situations, caste wars and communal strife. Even love is a violent, highly fraught emotion.
Her parents away on business, 11-year-old Nithya spends six sultry months in small-town Tamil Nadu with her unmarried uncle and widowed aunt. Battling boredom, stupefying heat and nosy neighbours, she befriends the family’s pretty servant, Sudha. As she tells Sudha’s story in an exquisitely rendered voice, Nithya emerges as an extraordinary girl.
Without warning a family on Campbell Street wakes up to the return of a long-lost member: Vasu. After nearly 15 years of unexplained absence he turns up suddenly, accompanied by Anand, his mysterious caretaker. They are met by Vasu\'s family, including his long-suffering wife Shanti and their children, Priya and Vivek; their beautiful, strong-willed, yet insecure neighbour Kathy; and the feisty, flirtatious maid-servant Rani. In the days that follow, the two men become the centre of attention and conflict.
The residents of Campbell Street attempt to understand the mystery of Vasu and his companion.
First Love (short stories)
The stories in First Love are set in Bangalore and rural India. A young girl finds herself falling in love for the first time ever. As she jealously attempts to keep the object of her love to herself, she moves deeper into a web of imagination and deceit and further away from the innocence of childhood. The collection also has a story of a little boy and girl who are fascinated with their neighbour, a eunuch; ‘The Secret’, the escapades of a middle-aged bachelor who yearns for some excitement in his life and finds it in marriage; ‘The Pied Piper of Hamelin’, an unusual take on the popular folktale, and the other stories in this unforgettable collection from southern India.