Stories of the True - Jeyamohan - ★★.½

AUTHOR: Jeyamohan

TRANSLATOR: Priyamvada Ramkumar

GENRE: Short Story Collection

PUBLICATION DATE: August 12, 2025

RATING: 2.5 stars.

In a Nutshell: A collection of stories all based on real-life people. The first ever translation of Tamil writer Jeyamohan’s work to English. Slice-of-life writing, which rarely works for me. Not sure if this will easily find an audience among non-Indians in the USA as the content is quite parochial. Better suited to readers who enjoy non-linear, meandering narratives and preferably have some familiarity with the (South) India of historical and recent times.

Jeyamohan is a prolific Tamil writer, currently based in Nagercoil, Tamil Nadu. He has won many prestigious awards for his writing. This is his first work to be translated to English. It was initially published in Tamil in 2011 as "Aram - Unmai Manithargalin Kathai". The first English translation was published in India in 2022. This US edition of the English version is due for release in August 2025.

India has twenty-two official languages and plenty of unofficial languages. With many of these boasting of plenty of acclaimed authors, it is nigh on impossible to know every single talented regional writer, especially as vernacular fiction rarely gets the limelight beyond its particular home-state. As a non-Tamilian, I hadn’t even heard of Jeyamohan until I spotted this collection on NetGalley. His bio and the Indian setting made me grab this collection. Unfortunately, his writing style wasn’t my cup of tea.

The collection begins with an note by the author, introducing the theme of “aram”, which is Tamil for the Sanskrit word "dharma" (close to "duty" in English.) He states that he wrote these stories in about forty days – quite a shocker to me, especially as the book is quite hefty at 400 pages. His intent is to celebrate the “triumph of humanity”, and as the title indicates, the book contains “stories of the true” – real-life people who are true in their intent, dedicated in their work, honest about their duties, or unfiltered in their brashness. There is an extended note at the end, providing details of the more popular “true” personalities in the book. This is fairly helpful.

Though so lengthy, the book contains only twelve stories. The author’s narrative technique makes the stories feel even lengthier. He has a peculiar, non-linear style of writing, whereby the stories often seem to begin with one topic and end somewhere else altogether, though the central actor stays in focus throughout. Even when the narrative is sequential, the storytelling is very meandering. Such slice-of-life writing makes it very tricky for me to concentrate on the content. Even the endings don’t offer any satisfaction in this approach.

Another challenge for me was the storytelling approach. A majority of the stories proceed primarily through conversations. These could be presented in the form of an interview, in which case the author inserts himself into the story as the interviewer, or like a biographical presentation, but with all the main events coming through dialogues. Such a writing technique, highly dependent on extended back-and-forth chitchat, never works for me. I prefer a balanced approach with enough descriptions and introspections to support the dialogues. Else, the effect is quite distanced, as if you are overhearing two strangers talk endlessly bouncing from topic to topic; after a point, you will lose interest and start zoning out.

I have read only two other Tamil translations prior to this. One was the brilliant novel ‘Poonachi: Or the Story of a Black Goat’ by Perumal Murugan, where the narrative was episodic but structured. The second was by an author whom Jeyamohan considers his ‘guru’: Sundara Ramaswamy’s ‘The Tamarind Tree’. Structurally, Ramaswamy’s book feels closer to Jeyamohan’s writing style as it also goes from topic to topic. However, the key difference is that ‘The Tamarind Tree’ is a composite novel, with the titular tree playing the central role in the episodic events surrounding it. ‘Stories of the True’, on the other hand, is a short story collection. So when every story is independent of the rest but each story still feels like a set of mini-episodes, the overall result is quite disjointed and jumpy. Basically, all three books are episodic for various reasons, but only Jeyamohan's didn't hit the mark for me. 

Given that this is being released in the US market, I am honestly not sure how much the average American would be able to connect with these tales. Every story is quintessentially (South)Indian, with plenty of references to the traditions, beliefs, politics, and social mores of that region. The stories are somewhat either historical or from the recent past, which further widens the gap between content and reader. Unless the reader has some basic familiarity with the ethos of South India, they might not be able to relate to anything in the book, be it plot, characters, atmosphere, or writing.

As always, I tried to rate the stories individually. But after the halfway mark, I just gave up on the rating as every story seemed to go the same way. The content and the characters were somewhat distinct but the writing style created déjà vu. Most of my ratings landed between 2 to 3 stars, with just two exceptions going to 3.5 stars: ‘The Elephant Doctor’ and ‘The Palm-Leaf Cross’. Strangely, the “true person” in both these stories was a white man settled in Tamil Nadu.

On the whole, while I do appreciate knowing about yet another talented regional Indian writer, I also regret that his writing style isn't for me. Perhaps if you are the kind of reader who doesn’t mind conversation-dominated or slice-of-life storytelling, this collection might work better for you.

My thanks to Farrar, Straus and Giroux and FSG Originals for providing the DRC of “Stories of the True” via NetGalley. This review is voluntary and contains my honest opinion about the book.