{"id":133,"date":"2008-03-08T12:19:14","date_gmt":"2008-03-08T11:19:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.shobasakthi.com\/shobasakthi\/archives\/133"},"modified":"2008-03-08T12:19:14","modified_gmt":"2008-03-08T11:19:14","slug":"gorilla","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.shobasakthi.com\/shobasakthi\/2008\/03\/08\/gorilla\/","title":{"rendered":"GORILLA"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sometimes, the only choice a boy has is to pick up a gun<\/font><\/strong><\/p>\n

\"gorill\"<\/p>\n

GORILLA<\/strong><\/font><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/font>Shobasakthi<\/font><\/p>\n

Translated by Anushiya Sivanarayanan<\/font>
\n<\/strong><\/font>
\nPublication: March 2008
\nPrice: Rs 195<\/font><\/p>\n

P<\/font>layful yet disturbing, Gorilla plunges us into the
\nvillage of Kunjan fields, in Jaffna, Sri Lanka. Here
\namusing local thug Gorilla runs wild and poor Rocky
\nRaj, his son, tries to distance himself from his father\u2019s
\nantics. When the Tamil Eelam Movement comes to
\ntown, he becomes a child soldier. Soon however, he
\nis thrown out by the Movement for not following orders
\n– then recaptured and tortured. What will be this
\nsoldier’s fate?<\/p>\n

Filled with characters as strange and violent as they
\nare unforgettable \u2013 young girls with bombs concealed
\nin their bosoms, delinquent boys, illicit liquor sellers,
\nwily police inspectors, murderers, prostitutes, farmers,
\ninnocents \u2013 Gorilla is the English language debut of a
\nremarkable talent.\n<\/p>\n

When he was fifteen Shobasakthi, born Anthony Thasan, joined the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam Movement (LTTE), like countless others. The LTTE, commonly known as the Tamil Tigers, is the largest and most powerful of the Tamil militant organizations which arose in the 1970s to attempt to create a separate Tamil state, or Tamil Eelam, in north and east Sri Lanka. As a response to the repressive actions of the majority Sinhala Government against Sri Lankan Tamil minorities, the LTTE has waged a violent secessionist campaign in Sri Lanka since the \u201870s. And as a response to his close experience with this violence, Shobasakthi wrote Gorilla.<\/p>\n

Shobasakthi<\/font> is in his late thirties and says he does not need the trappings of a bourgeois family life; marriage and a steady job. He works as a dishwasher or supermarket shelver, and has always found employment at the minimum wage-level. He has a large network of mostly male friends. Deeply thoughtful, Shobasakthi explains his political commitments as inseparable from his everyday life. He and his writer\/activist friends maintain his blog, organize literary and political meetings and activities, and ultimately maintain a network of writers and thinkers within the Tamil-speaking refugee world. With a friend, he has brought out three literary collections on dalit politics, postmodernism and anti-fascism. In Tamil communities in Sri Lanka as well as in the refugee communities, these collections have helped to spark conversations about these issues and introduced in Tamil Nadu the alternative voices of those against the Tigers.
\n\u2018There are about fifty of us: those gone wild in the literary world,\u2019 Shobasakthi says.
\n\u00a0<\/strong><\/font><\/p>\n

For media related enquiries please contact:<\/strong>
\n<\/font>
\nMary Therese Kurkalang
\nPublicity Manager
\nRandom House Publishers India Pvt. Ltd.
\n301 World Trade Tower
\nBarakhamba Road
\nNew Delhi 110001
\nT: +91 11 41528305, 41528306
\nF: +91 11 41528307
\nE: mtkurkalang@randomhouse.co.in<\/a>
\nhttp:\/\/www.randomhouse.co.in\/<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sometimes, the only choice a boy has is to pick up a gun GORILLA \u00a0Shobasakthi Translated by Anushiya Sivanarayanan Publication: March 2008 Price: Rs 195 Playful yet disturbing, Gorilla plunges us into the village of Kunjan fields, in Jaffna, Sri Lanka. Here amusing local thug Gorilla runs wild and poor Rocky Raj, his son, tries […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,88],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-133","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-12","category-88"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shobasakthi.com\/shobasakthi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/133","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shobasakthi.com\/shobasakthi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shobasakthi.com\/shobasakthi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shobasakthi.com\/shobasakthi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shobasakthi.com\/shobasakthi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=133"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.shobasakthi.com\/shobasakthi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/133\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shobasakthi.com\/shobasakthi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=133"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shobasakthi.com\/shobasakthi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=133"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shobasakthi.com\/shobasakthi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=133"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}