Tyagu

This is the English translation of Sivasankari's Tamil novel 'Oru Manithanin Kathai'.

"A young man driven to the brink by a cruel combination of middle class compulsions - the untimely death of his beloved mother, the double-speak of a callous father, the spectre of a vicious step-mother total absence of self-confidence. Just the setting for tripping into a quagmire-alcoholism.

Once there, nothing really helps, not a caring friend, not even organized resurrection. The man keeps sinking into a chasm... into a deep, dark abyss... Is the situation utterly hopeless?

Not for Sivasankari, the super-scribe of emotive experience and social commitment. As the day dawns, the Spirit of Man rises to new life... to new hope in the horizon"

- S R Govinda Rajan, Educationist

"The complex interaction of mood, behaviour and family relations in the process of alcoholism is clearly brought out into this story. The author's description of the problem is so exact that many families with alchoholic problems believed that this story was about them."

- Dr V Ramachandran, Professor of Psychiatry