Stories
In the 1980s, Madhavan went through a decade-long period of writer's block, until the release of his story 'Higuita' in 1990. In this work, Madhavan models his protagonist, priest Father Geevarghese, on Higuita, the 1990 FIFA World Cup goalkeeper for Colombia. Higuita's unconventional playing style whereby he would often abandon his goal and try to score goals, occupies the priest's imagination. Likewise, he temporarily abandons his cassock and saves a tribal girl Lucie from the clutches of the trafficker Jabbar. The short story was adjudged the best in hundred years of Malayalam literature. Since then he has published four collections of stories, a novel and one collection of plays. Madhavan's works of short fiction are:
- Chulaimedile Savangal (Corpses of Chulaimed)
- Higuita
- Thiruth (Blue Pencil)
- Paryaya Kathakal (Stories about Names)
- Nilavili (The Cry)
Madhavan's contribution to the short story genre, which is dying in most parts of the world, is reckoned by critics to be unique and noteworthy. As a short-fiction writer, his art gives importance to minute details and exemplifies the manifest skill and compact craft that writing short fiction demands. In Madhavan's works the subtle connections of criss-crossing dialogs and interlacing plots ultimately reveal an integrated narrative continuum.
Read more about this topic: N. S. Madhavan
Famous quotes containing the word stories:
“the tide lays down its wet throat
and alters the land to islandeven as I watch
I say there is no shore
apart from stories of it,
no smoke, no hut, no beacon ...”
—Lynn Emanuel (b. 1949)
“If you like to make things out of wood, or sew, or dance, or style peoples hair, or dream up stories and act them out, or play the trumpet, or jump rope, or whatever you really love to do, and you love that in front of your children, thats going to be a far more important gift than anything you could ever give them wrapped up in a box with ribbons.”
—Fred M. Rogers (20th century)
“Fairy tales are loved by the child not because the imagery he finds in them conforms to what goes on within him, but becausedespite all the angry, anxious thoughts in his mind to which the fairy tale gives body and specific contentthese stories always result in a happy outcome, which the child cannot imagine on his own.”
—Bruno Bettelheim (20th century)