Many and Beautiful Things - by Jissa Jose (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

A mystery from southern India about a woman, her disappearance, and the thin line between travel and escape.

A woman is missing. At least, according to the young man who turns up at the police station to report it. Strangely, he's never actually met her. Several months ago, the woman, Mudritha, hired him to plan a group trip for her and nine other women to the Indian state of Odisha. But on the day of the trip, she never showed. With little to go on, the police are ready to give up the case, but Vanitha, a jaded policewoman on the brink of leaving her job, continues the investigation in secret. What begins as a search for Mudritha unravels into a portrait of the nine other women, brought together by a Facebook group, Sappho's poetry, and a desire to slip away.

Exquisitely translated from Malayalam by Jayasree Kalathil, Jissa Jose's Many and Beautiful Things explores women at the margins of their own lives, wrestling with their traumas, secret ambitions, and an urge to upend everything.

Review Quotes

Reviews of the Indian edition (titled Mudritha):

"Mudritha cannot be reduced to a tragic figure. She is not a triumphant one either. She remains elusive, much like the river she wished to meet from up close. In an age where women's disappearances are invariably reduced to crime statistics or media spectacle, Mudritha offers an alternative gaze: one that investigates the complexity of leaving or perhaps the simplicity of existing in chaos."- Telegraph India

"Mudritha is an intriguing palimpsest of narratives of women and rivers, journeys and disappearances, loss and self-discovery, with echoes and resonances of myth and legend. The nuanced translation by Jayasree Kalathil successfully conveys the subtle inflections and silences of Jissa Jose's writing.'"- Namita Gokhale, author of The Blind Matriarch

'Mudritha leaves an indelible impression on you just as the mysterious woman at the centre of the novel touches the lives of all the narrators. This is a story of many journeys, the ones that take us outside of ourselves, and within, the ones we have dreamed of and never embark on, the ones we take both in our sleeping and waking lives. What an astonishing achievement - in form, style, and language, ever flexible, ever new, ever surprising. And at the heart of it all, the secret lives of women, tethering always on the edge of the miraculous. I loved every page of Jissa Jose's startling debut.' - Janice Pariat, author of Everything the Light Touches

'Mudritha is an extraordinary novel. Its sharp and tender eye takes in the cages we build for ourselves and others, and relays them back to us with a sly mischief that becomes liberating. Jayasree Kalathil is one of our finest translators into English. With Mudritha she pulls off a tightrope act in which she conveys cultural resonances deeply embedded in language while keeping the novel compulsively readable.' - Srinath Perur, author of If It's Monday It Must Be Madurai

'A deeply moving novel about women who find - or at least dare to seek - their freedom even in the smallest nooks of life's labyrinths. Unforgettable.' - Sharanya Manivannan, author of Incantations Over Water