Mohanaswamy by Vasudhendra and Rashmi Terdal

'Much like the great James Baldwin, the acclaimed Kannada writer
Vasudhendra has transformed his personal experience of bigotry, shame and
tragedy into harrowing but magnificent truth-telling. His work will leave you
impatient with other writers.' -Siddharth Dube, author of No One Else.
Mohanaswamy has just lost his long-time partner, Karthik, to a woman. Even
as he scrutinizes himself, the choices he's made, the friends and lovers he's
gained and lost, Mohanaswamy dreams of living a simple, dignified life. A life
that would allow him to leave, even forget, the humiliation and fears of
adolescence, the slurs his mind still carries around - gandu sule, hennu huli -
and the despair that made him crave to conform.
A coming out of the closet for Vasudhendra himself, these stories of
homosexual love and lives jolted Kannada readers out of their notions of the
literary and the palatable. The gritty narratives of Mohanaswamy explore
sexuality, urbanization and class with nuance and an unflinching honesty that
will both unnerve and move readers in English, and serve as a fine introduction
to one of the strongest voices in Kannada literature.

Vasudhendra has written thirteen
books in Kannada and has won
many literary awards, including the
Kannada Sahitya Academy Book
Award, the Da Raa Bendre Story
Award and the Dr U.R.
Ananthamurthy Award. He runs his
own publishing house, Chanda
Pustaka, and is associated with
various LGBTQ support groups.
Translator Rashmi Terdal is a
journalist with the Times of India.