Kōnangki’s Words Floating in a Mental Space Where Land and Time are Blurred

நிலமும் காலமும் மயங்கிய மனவெளியில் மிதக்கின்ற கோணங்கியின் சொற்கள்

Abstract

It is necessary to initiate a discourse centered on the question of how to characterize the words of Konangi, a storyteller who holds a distinctive identity in the world of Tamil short fiction. The words welling up within Konangi in the realm of memory emerge, transforming at one level into stories and at another into fictions. Konangi’s world of stories expanding infinitely through words steeped in darkness and absurdity is, in a sense, an expression of a deranged state of mind. In Konangi’s creative work, language holds the primary position, while fiction embedded within the words occupies the secondary place. There is no one in Tamil to match Konangi, who has cast aside definitions constructed by words to forge a new narrative for himself and who, at a certain stage, even repudiates his own writing to reinvent the art of fiction.