Susanna's Granthapura

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AJAIP MANGATTU is a well-known novelist, essayist and translator in Malayalam. He lives between Kottayam and Kozhikode in Kerala. He was born in a small mountainous village in Idukki, Kerala. After completing his post- graduation from Maharajas College Ernakulam, he started his career as a journalist in 1998 and is now an assistant editor with Malayala Manorama, the second-largest- selling daily newspaper in India. He has been writing literary criticism for various magazines in Malayalam for the last twenty-five years. His first novel, now a bestseller, Susannayude Granthapura, was published in 2019. His translations include Gail Omvedt's Ambedkar: Towards an Enlightened India, Elie Wiesel's Night and Elif Shafak's Forty Rules of Love. He has published books on the life and works of Gabriel Garcia Márquez and Noam Chomsky.

Why does the usually aloof and reticent Paul suddenly want to meet Ali after Susanna's death? Why does the possibility of discovering an unfinished manuscript by a long-forgotten writer prompt Ali and Abhi to undertake a journey to Marayoor, a small town in the Western Ghats, deep in the heart of Kerala?

First published in Malayalam in 2019, Susanna's Granthapura is Ajai P. Mangattu's uniquely crafted novel which, even as it celebrates the bond that forms between people who share a love for books and for reading, reveals the deep emotional undercurrents that shape human behaviour.