In this epic novel, the author examines the very fibre of contemporary Indian life in terms of post-Independence and the post-Gandhian scene. Received the first prize for Excellence in Book Production 2011 (translation category) from the Federation of Indian Publishers.
Santeshivara Lingannaiah Bhyrappa is a best-selling Kannada novelist and is perhaps the most translated novelist in India today. Bhyrappa's latest novel, Avarana, created a record by going for twenty-two reprints in just two years. His twenty-one novels and a stunningly absorbing autobiography, Bhitti, have had the same distinction. Two of his novels have been translated into all fourteen official languages of India, while several others have been translated into many languages, especially Hindi and Marathi. Three of his works have been translated into Sanskrit, a rare distinction. Five of his novels have been translated into English: Vamshavriksha (East-West Books, Madras); Daatu (B.R. Publishing Corporation, Delhi); Parva (Sahitya Akademi, Delhi); Saakshi (East-West Books, Madras); and Saartha (Oxford University Press, Delhi). S. Ramaswamy, a three-time Fullbright Scholar at the Universities of California, Texas and Yale, a two-time British Council Scholar at Oxford and London, a Shastri Indo-Canadian Fellow at McGill University, Montreal, is a Fellow of Silliman College, Yale University. He is also winner of the Phi Beta Kappa Award of Southern California and the Karnataka State Sahitya Akademi Award. Ramaswamy studied Sanskrit traditionally in a pathshala, and went on to become editor of Tattvaloka - A Journal of Vedanta. He has translated many books from Sanskrit and Kannada into English, among them S.L. Bhyrappa's Saartha. Fifteen of his books (eight in English, seven in Kannada) have been published.