Novel
அசன்பே சரித்திரம்
Not translated into English
M. C. Siddi Lebbe · 1885
Synopsis
In Cairo, under the government of Sayyid Pasha, a boy named Asan is born into a Muslim family. While still a child, he is kidnapped by criminals and taken far from Egypt, as far as India, where he grows up. There he receives an English education and earns his living in various trades from one city to another, from Bombay to Surat and Calcutta, while Egypt and his family remain behind him.
Context
The book was published in 1885, a date that other sources put at 1888 or 1895, and it was reprinted in 1890; a modern edition was produced in India, in Tiruchirappalli, in 1974. About 170 pages long, without chapters, it presents itself as a true story, with dates and notes, and starts from an Arabic tale. Published as a religious book rather than as a novel, it long escaped the researchers who were compiling the history of the Tamil novel.
Who it is for
A book in Tamil of about 170 pages, to be read in its own language: there is no French translation and no English translation.
Prizes and reception
Regarded as the first Tamil novel written in Ceylon and, by some scholars, as the second novel of the Tamil language.
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The pages consulted to check this page.