Do Not Ask The River Her Name

Sheela Tomy is a novelist and short-story writer, hailing from Wayanad, Kerala. Valli, her debut novel, was awarded the renowned Cherukad Award for Malayalam Literature in 2021. The English translation of Valli by Dr Jayasree Kalathil bagged the V. Abdulla Memorial Translation Award (2023). Valli was also shortlisted for the 2023 National Translation Award from the American Literary Translators Association (ALTA), the JCB Prize for Literature (2022), the Atta Galatta-BLF Book Prize (2022) and the GreenLitFest Honour Books Award (2023). Valli also bagged the Book of the Year Award for translation by the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI) in 2023. Sheela is also the author of a short story collection Melquiadesnte Pralayapusthakam (Melquiadess Book of Floods) published in 2012. She has won several awards for her short stories, including the Abu Dhabi Arangu Award (2007), the Puzha.com Short Story Award (2008), Doha Sanskriti Award (2012), the Doha Samanwayam Award (2012), and the Kamala Surayya µNeermathalam Award UAE (2014). Her recognitions include the Madhyamam She Q Excellence Award (2022), the KCBC Media Award for Literature (2023) and the µAshayam Basheer Award (2023). Sheela has been residing in the Middle East for more than two decades. She has a postgraduate degree in journalism and mass communication and has contributed as a lyricist, scriptwriter for radios, and is a presenter of literary reviews. Sheelas articles on contemporary issues have been published in various media forums. Aa Nadiyodu Peru Chodikkaruth (Do Not Ask the River Her Name), her newest work, was awarded the Muthukulam Parvathy Amma Literature Prize and the Maniyoor Balan Novel Award in 2024...

In Sheela Tomy’s new novel, the foreign observer of Israel and Palestine is not the archetypal Westerner, but a middle-aged Indian woman. Translated from Malayalam by Ministhy S, Do Not Ask The River Her Name weaves the past and future into a blood-filled present to tell an emotional and urgent tale. The lyrical prose connects a range of characters across continents and decades into a story that questions the religions, prophets and politicians that have amassed such bloodshed.

Most of the novel takes place in Jerusalem, yet the notion of displacement, and the place-lessness of an uprooting, is what Tomy seems most concerned with. The novel is even dedicated “to those who have no place on their birth-soil.” In the novel, “those” refers first to Ruth, originally from Kerala but compelled to move to overseas to provide for her family, then to Sahal, a Palestinian poet whose home and parents were bombed to ashes when he was just a child, and finally to Asher, an Israeli who struggles to make sense of the bloodshed that surrounds him. Abraham, and the three faiths he spawned, connect the three: Catholic Ruth, Muslim Sahal and Jewish Asher.