Where the Lord Sleeps

This is the English translation of Neela Padmanabhan's Tamil novel - Pallikondapuram, which was first published in Tamil in 1970.

Through the life of Anantan Nair – the humble hero of this novel – we experience the tragedy of the ancient regime of princely India and traditional Kerala society, caught in a whirl of vulgar modernisation.

As the rigid hierarchical social order of the Nairs, with the easy virtues of their matriarchal tribalism and the slow pace of an ambitionless life crumbles, Anantan Nair finds himself questioning his life's worth as a husband, father and man.

In this beautiful novel, Neela Padmanabhan has captured the soul of Trivandrum and laid it bare for us to see.

Neela Padmanabhan is a prolific writer in both Tamil and Malayalam, with eleven novels, six short story collections, a volume of poems and a collection of essays to his credit.

About the author

The 2007 winner of the Sahitya Akademi award, India's leading literary honour, Neela Padmanabhan is a prolific writer in both Tamil and Malayalam. He has several novels, short stories, poetry and essays to his credit. His works have been prescribed for graduate study at the universities of Kerala, Calicut, Madurai and Delhi. He has translated and edited anthologies in Malayalam, and Tamil respectively. A professional with the Kerala State Electricity Board, Neela Padmanabhan retired as its Chief Engineer.

About the translator

This book has been translated from Tamil into English by M Dakshinamurthy.

M Dakshinamurthy has been an English teacher for many years. Fluent in Tamil, Malayalam and English, he has written original poems and articles and translated many novels and poems. Among his notable translations from Tamil to Malayalam are Arasu Ganam by K N Subramaniam and Uravugal by Neela Padmanabhan.