If you had to recommend one book from your regional language or your state or locale and not just your country what would it be?

I mean books that kind of captures your culture, or history or region or locale and is generally considered a masterpiece.

I come from a state called Kerala in India and my recommendations are these three:

1.) “Oru desathinte katha (Roughly translates to “The Story of A Locale”) (Official translation “Tales of Athiranippadam”) by S.K. Pottekatt

This one’s deeply autobiographical and is mostly about the authors own village life, and him growing up and the people living in that village, it also go through his experiences travelling to other countries too by the end.

2.) “Khasakinte Ithihasam” (The legends of Khazak) by O.V. Vijayan

Kind of a cultural landmark where I live, it kind of changed the landscape and is kind of a magical realism, and existentialist novel about a guy coming into a village as a one man school for kids in that area , mostly about his experiences there and the life of the people there.

3.) “Verukal” (Roots) by Malayatoor ramakrishnan (Also might mention “The god of small things” by Arundathi Roy was gonna be here , but thought I’d say it was a tie between it and roots for third place.)

Roots is more about a man coming back to his ancestral home to sell it and reconnecting with his past there, and his life before moving to the big city and what he lost in the rat race of life.

While the god of small things is more popular and was the first Indian novel to win the booker prize. It follows the life of twins named Estha and Rahel who had tragedy struck upon them when they were kids and the narrative jumps between the present when they are adults , and the past. Which is also nonlinear.

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