Mistress

When travel writer Christopher Stewart arrives at a riverside resort in Kerala, India to meet Koman, Radha’s uncle and a famous dancer, he enters a world of masks and repressed emotions. From their first meeting, both Radha and her uncle are drawn to the enigmatic young man with his cello and his incessant questions about the past. The triangle quickly excludes Shyam, Radha’s husband, who can only watch helplessly as she embraces Chris with a passion that he has never been able to draw from her. Also playing the role of observer-participant is Koman; his life story, as it unfolds, captures all the nuances and contradictions of the relationships being made—and unmade—in front of his eyes.

Praise

"Tempestuously exotic, Nair's intricately woven multicultural and multigenerational saga pulsates with passion and desire."—Booklist

 

"This intricately plotted novel by Nair, her third to be published in the United States, blends myth, history, and human emotion into a mixture as sweet as the nectar of the jackfruit and as tangled as human behavior . . . "—Library Journal, (starred review)

 

About the Author(s)

Anita Nair

Anita Nair lives in Bangalore, India. Her books have been published in several languages around the world.

photo: David Ignaszewski

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Excerpt

  BOOK 1Kandaalethrayum kowthukamundithine, pandu
Kandilla jnan evam vidham kettumilla

How beautiful it is to look at, never
have I seen or heard of anything like it

—Nalacharitam [First Day]
Unnayi WarrierSringaaramLove. Let us begin with sringaaram.Do we know other words for it?Or do we know it by the widening of the eye, the arching of eyebrows, the softness of the mouth that curves, by that swelling of breath from each nerve-end wanting to cup a contour?We have words for this flooding that can sweep away all other thoughts.

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