A Historiographic Metafictional Reading Of Sugandhi Alias Andal Devanayaki By T. D. Ramakrishnan

Abstract

This research paper is an attempt to read the novel Sugandhi Alias Andal Devanayaki in Linda Hutcheon’s concept of ‘Historiographic metafiction’ in this research paper. T D Ramakrishnan's “Sugandhi Alias Andal Devanayaki”, translated from the original Malayalam work published in 2014 by Priya K Nair has secured several Awards, where the novel with its main plot speaks the story of women who suffers and struggles in the backdrop of LTTE conflict in the history of Sri Lanka meanwhile the subplot speaks of the meta-realistic backdrop of historical Chera-Chola dynasties. The author successfully conveys the political ideas, message against war and discrimination towards women in general through the merging of reality, history, myth, and fiction. Historiographic Metafiction is a technique of postmodernism, which according to Linda Hutcheon - “those well-known and popular novels which are both intensely self-reflexive and yet paradoxically also lay claim to historical events and personages”(Hutcheon5).