Lakshmi’s Secret Diary

A Novel

Ari Gautier author Sheela Mahadevan translator

Format:Paperback

Publisher:Columbia University Press

Published:10th Sep '24

Should be back in stock very soon

Lakshmi’s Secret Diary cover

Seeking to escape captivity, Lakshmi the temple elephant sets out on a stirring journey toward freedom. On her way, she briefly experiences life as a film star and encounters a colorful cast including a three-legged dog named Tripod Dog Baba, other elephants in the Bandipur Forest, a chameleon facing an existential crisis, a moon who dances with an elephant, and a flying fish called Alphonse.

Lakshmi’s Secret Diary is a remarkable Indian Francophone novel set in Pondicherry, the former capital of French India. Blending philosophical meditations, retellings of Sanskrit mythology, and social critique, Ari Gautier tells the story of Lakshmi’s attempt to escape her fate. From the point of view of animals, the novel explores concepts of destiny, freedom, and identity. It illuminates the paradoxes of animal-human relations in India, where animals are both abused and worshiped, and provides an imaginative critique of the caste system. Gautier’s vivid portrait of Pondicherry brings to life the religious, cultural, culinary, and visual diversity of the city’s districts and sheds light on the little-known history of French colonialism in India. An afterword explores issues such as reincarnation and Indian translation traditions in relation to the novel. At once tragic and comic, satirical and surreal, Lakshmi’s Secret Diary is a surprising, compelling, and moving novel from a gifted storyteller.

What a magnificent and original novel, introducing the reader to a dreamlike world where the nature of India plays a major role. -- Maryse Condé, author of Segu and I, Tituba, Black Witch of Salem
This is a tale that goes back through the ages, but that reaches out to us, now, as we subjugate nature to our own ends. Filled with humour, it is nonetheless heart-breaking. -- Ananda Devi, author of The Living Days
Fusing history, memory, mythology, and the immediate present, Lakshmi’s Secret Diary is Ari Gautier’s gift to a lost humankind. Meditative and melancholy, whimsical and funny, it breaks free of its location in colonial Pondicherry to meditate on the human condition, on fate and freedom and choice. It lingers long after you’ve read it. -- Geetanjali Shree, International Booker Prize-winning author of Tomb of Sand
Translating a text as subtly complex as Ari Gautier’s Lakshmi’s Secret Diary with the litheness of Sheela Mahadevan’s English is a considerable accomplishment. In her translation, Gautier’s Pondichéry is rich with unforgettable characters, history, and wisdom. -- Matt Reeck, translator of “Muslim”: A Novel

ISBN: 9780231212052

Dimensions: unknown

Weight: unknown

296 pages