"KATH" ..STORIES FROM KASHMIR BY PROF.NEERJA MATTOO

                                                                                   

            

KATH ( Stories From Kashmir )

Compiled And translated
by
Prof. Neerja Mattoo

Published by Sahitya Academy New Delhi
Available at
Sales Counter
“SWATI ” Mandir Marg New Delhi
ISBN 978-81-260-3059-0

Website http://www.sahitya-akademi.gov.in
Email sahityaakademisales@vsnl.net
Price 175/=

Prof Neerja Mattoo hardly needs any introduction. She has been translating a wide spectrum of kashmiri prose and poetry to English .A Fellowship granted by Ministry of HRD in 1997 made her work extensively on Kashmiri Women Poets . She was also awarded British council Visitorship to the university of Oxford in 1984. Neerja ji retired as Principal and HOD of English at the Government college of women. Her Books “The Stranger Beside Me “ and “Contemporary Kashmiri short stories “have been widely read and appreciated . She lives in Delhi and Srinagar and travels a lot.

I strongly recommend this book to one and all. To kashmiris ,Non Kashmiris ,Young ,Old and to those who want to enjoy some representative kashmiri short stories written post 1947.Neerja ji has Covered almost everybody who is somebody in so far as kashmiri short story is concerned in a sequential manner.

Her first story is JAWAABI CARD or REPLY PAID POST CARD By DINA Nath Naadim (1916-1988 ) while the last story is GENEROUS CHINAR by Mushtaq Ahmed Mushtaq ( Born 1961). In between you get some wonderful English translation of short Stories by Som Nath Zutshi , Amin Kaamil, Akhtar Mohi Ud Din, Ali Mohd Lone, Habib Kamraan , Umesh Kaul, Sufi Ghulam Mohd, Taj Begum Renzu, Autar Krishen Rehbar ,Deepak Kaul, Bansi Nirdosh ,Hari Krishen Kaul,Hriday Kaul Bharti, Gh.Nabi Shakir, Rattan Lal Shant, Shanker Raina , Farooq Masudi and Majrooh Rashid.

Though I have read some of these short stories in original Kashmiri ,yet the English translation of Prof Mattoo is a class apart and enthralling. I don’t think these stories could have been translated anything better by any other person. 

Prof Jaya Parimu adds ,

" I am sure that Mam Prof. N.Mattoo has done some translations of Hari Krishan Kaul's stories, besides other works Co authored with other luminaries of literary firmament of the Vale. She has been into the academics and writing right from her college days. Kashmiri cuisine by Neerja Mattoo was gifted to me by my niece from U.S.

I used to call her a walking talking encyclopedia during my time in the Women's College Srinagar .Google was not there but we had a special privilege to be her junior colleagues "

Kudos to Prof. Mattoo for this great effort that has enabled many readers (who do not know the kashmiri script ) to have access to this treasure.The book is available online at Amazon.

( Autar Mota )

PS
Cover painting done by Veer Munshi shows a young boy in a pheran sitting beside a loom weaving a kashmiri carpet..

CHINAR SHADE by Autarmota is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.5 India License.
Based on a work at http:\\autarmota.blogspot.com\.