Nine Yard Sarees: a short story cycle

by Prasanthi Ram

Overview

Nine Yard Sarees is a multigenerational portrait of a fictional Tamil Brahmin family. Comprising eleven interlinked stories, this short story cycle traces the lives of nine women from 1950 all the way to 2019, shedding light on the community and its evolution through the decades. As the stories take us from India to Singapore, Australia and even America, we follow the experiences of the women in the family: Raji the matriarch who lives in seclusion at an ashram; her daughter Padma who struggles to raise her family the traditional way; Padma’s daughter Keerthana who is about to be married and don the nine yard saree, a symbol of womanhood. Tender, dynamic and full of heart, this cycle is a resonant portrayal of female solidarity and the complexities of the diasporic experience in contemporary Singapore.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9789811860362
Publisher:	Ethos Books
Publication date:	11/17/2023
Sold by:	Hallenberger Media
Format:	eBook
Pages:	272
File size:	1 MB

About the Author

Prasanthi Ram (Dr) is a full-time writing lecturer at Nanyang Technological University, where she completed her PhD in creative writing. Born out of her dissertation, Nine Yard Sarees is her debut work of fiction. Other short stories can be found in a variety of publications including Best New Singaporean Short Stories: Volume Five (Epigram Books: 2021) and Food Republic: A Singapore Literary Banquet (Landmark Books: 2020). She also writes personal essays that have been published in What We Inherit: Growing Up Indian (AWARE: 2022) as well as Making Kin: Ecofeminist Essays from Singapore (Ethos Books: 2021). In 2020, she co-founded Mahogany Journal, an online literary journal that platforms South Asian writers in Singapore, and currently serves as its fiction editor. As a Tamil Singaporean herself, Prasanthi hopes to write more fiction that places her community on the literary map. She also hopes to raise a dog and live near the coast someday.