Like the sweet heat of a curry prickling your tongue or the bursting radiance of bougainvillea, the short stories in Mary Anne Mohanraj's gorgeous debut collection, Bodies in Motion, will delight your senses and your sensibilities. Linked by the thread of kinship, these stories trace the lives of two generations of two families living on the cusp of disparate worlds: America and Sri Lanka. Through them we see just how the emigrant-immigrant ebb and flow shapes lives and the bonds of family.
Mohanraj writes effervescent prose, distilling intimate moments to reveal the tug-of-war between generations and gender as modernization comes into conflict with centuries of tradition. Sensual and honest, the stories chronicle love, ambition, and spiritual and sexual quests of mothers and daughters, fathers and sons. Bodies in Motion promises to be a collection you will come back to, again and again.

Bodies in Motion: Stories

Literature & Fiction

Mohanraj, Mary Anne

United States

Harper

Like the sweet heat of a palate-pleasing curry or the brilliant radiance of bougainvillea, the short stories in Mary Anne Mohanraj's Bodies in Motion will delight the senses and sensibilities. Her tales follow two generations of two families living on the cusp of disparate worlds, America and Sri Lanka -- their lives and ties shaped, strengthened, devastated, and altered by the emigrant-immigrant ebb and flow. Through stunning, effervescent prose, intimate moments are beautifully distilled, revealing the tug-of-war between generations and gender in stories sensual and honest, chronicling love, ambition, and the spiritual and sexual quests of mothers and daughters, fathers and sons.

Harper-perennial

The hero (antihero) of this narrative is a highly successful Los Angeles writer and advertising executive born Evangelos Arness, now known as Eddie Anderson, and bylined Evans Arness over his magazine pieces. That he has many names is significant since Eddie, at 43, hasn't a clue to who he really is. He appears to be a valued member of his firm, with a bank account, a big house and a swimming pool. He appears to be the husband of Florence, a terribly nice woman even though she thinks of marriage as a panel discussion of Hesse and Camus. For Eddie there is an insane split between appearance and reality. His whole life is a series of phony arrangements: his marriage, his work, his sexual escapades, his friendships. "He finds a temporary antidote to the disease in Gwen Hunt, one of the most riveting characters in recent fiction - untamed, primitive, all instinct and gutter shrewdness. She is never accompanied to bed by specters of guilt or remorse or other culturally induced complications that might interfere with the pure animal ecstasy of sex. But it takes more than Gwen to save the tiny flicker of life left in Eddie. It takes two attempts at suicide, a crushingly merciless self-examination, a complete abandonment of the American dream and a voyage through the past. He totters, staggers, eventually marches through a series of wild, crazy and oh-so-human adventures toward that sensation he has never known - the feeling of being a man on his own, independent of the judgment of others, secure in the knowledge of his own worth. "One may dislike or disapprove of Eddie, but nobody can deny his humanity. He is at the mercy of his gonads and hormones as well as of his core science and the social gentilities. He is never a bore He has no self-pity. He doesn't disguise his son-of a-bitch qualities. He has a great sense of irony. H is often funny. By the end of the book he ha achieved what is most needed on this shaky plane -a new working model of a human being"

The Arrangement

Harpercollins

George R. R. Martin Presents Wild Cards: Sleeper Straddle: A Novel in Stories

Gladstone, Max

Priest, Cherie

Wu, William F.

Leigh, Stephen

Rowe, Christopher

Vaughn,Carrie

Williams,Walter Jon

Bantam]

Genre Fiction

Dip into a melting-pot of sexual pleasure with the latest collection in the Herotica series. The exotic and the erotic meet in journeys of desire as diverse as the cultural backgrounds of the characters. Each short story is an example of the heated passion and the politics of arousal that erupt when people of different cultures come together. The authors explore their fantasies, their prejudices, and the ways in which cultural differences can be at once an attracting force and a seemingly impenetrable barrier. Twenty-six tales of complex relationships draw a multi-hued picture of race, religion, and culture's impact on passion and desire. In one a Chinese New Year's dragon dancer entrances an African-American woman. In another, Pakistani and U.S. virgins muddle through their assumptions about each other's sexual past and find their way to a feverish coupling. Embracing her Native American traditions more closely, a Metis shows her white lover the passionate inclusiveness of her spiritual world. And Indian and Puerto Rican pre-med students turn up the heat of first lust in the midst of a Chicago winter.

Herotica 7

BRIGHT, Susie

Sheiner, Marcy

Down There Pr

Readers call the shots in these titillating original books, written by premier erotica authors, which allow you to live out your most uninhibited erotic fantasies. Kathryn in the City follows "you," as Kathryn, from a small Indiana town to San Francisco, where you decide whether to pursue a relationship with a sexy post-doctoral student, have a dalliance with a lesbian stripper, or shag your gay roommate's boyfriend, to name just a few of the possible fantasies you can choose from along your narrative journey. But always beware of the perils of big-city life that might leave you imprisoned in a dark dungeon with nary a Prince Charming in sight.

Kathryn in the City: Create Your Own Erotic Fantasy

Gotham

The Stars Change

On the brink of interstellar war, life (and sex) continues. Humans, aliens, and modified humans gather at the University of All Worlds in search of knowledge... and self-knowledge... but the first bomb has fallen and the fate of this multicultural, multispecies mecca is in question. Some will rush home to make love to their wife. Or wives. Or husbands. Or indeterminate gender human and/or alien partners. Others will be forced to decide where they stand -- what is worth fighting for, or maybe even worth dying for. A thought-provoking work on sexuality and the connections between people--whether male or female, human or alien--The Stars Change is part space opera, part literary mosaic of story, poem, and art.

Erotica

Circlet Press, Incorporated

The Stars Change: an erotic science fiction novel-in-stories. On a South Asian-settled university planet, tensions are rising, and as they reach the brink of interstellar war, life (and sex) continues. Humans, aliens, and modified humans gather at the University of All Worlds in search of knowledge... and self-knowledge... but the first bomb has fallen and the fate of this multicultural, multispecies mecca is in question. Some people will seek solace in physical contact, some will look for spiritual answers, while others will find their strength in community, family, and love. Some will rush home to make love to their wife. Or wives. Or husbands. Or indeterminate gender human and/or alien partners. Others will be forced to decide where they stand -- what is worth fighting for, or maybe even worth dying for. In The Stars Change, author Mary Anne Mohanraj presents a multi-layered, thought-provoking, and far-reaching work on sexuality and the connections between people--whether male or female, human or alien. The Stars Change is part space opera, part literary mosaic of story, poem, and art. It is fitting that a book that emphasizes the power of community was funded through Kickstarter. Begun as a project entitled "Demi Monde," The Stars Change is the result of the money raised by supporters that went to pay for not only the art and illustrations in the book, but the author's time, allowing her to focus on writing for that crucial interval. About the Author: Mary Anne Mohanraj is the author of Bodies in Motion, Sri Lankan-American linked stories (HarperCollins), as well as Silence and the Word, The Best of Strange Horizons (ed.), Aqua Erotica (ed.), and The Poet's Journey (a children's fantasy picture book). Bodies in Motion was a finalist for the Asian-American Book Awards and has been translated into six languages. Mohanraj received an Illinois Arts Council Fellowship in Prose (2006). Mohanraj lives in Chicago, where she teaches creative writing and post-colonial literature at the University of Illinois; she also taught at the Clarion workshop in 2008. She is a graduate of Clarion West, and holds an MFA and a Ph.D. in creative writing.

Riverdale Avenue Books

In Vegan Serendib, novelist and post-colonial academic Mary Anne Mohanraj introduces her mother's cooking and her own American adaptations, providing an introduction to Sri Lankan American vegan cooking that is straightforward enough for a beginner, yet nuanced enough to capture the unique flavors of Sri Lankan cuisine.\nWe come together with other Sri Lankans-homelander and diaspora, Sinhalese and Tamil, Buddhist and Hindu and Christian and Muslim-over delicious shared meals. Sri Lanka has been a multi-ethnic society for over two thousand years, with neighbors of different ethnicities, languages, religions, living side by side. We try to teach our children to be welcoming to all, to share our unique cultural traditions. That is part of what it means to be Sri Lankan, what it has always meant.\nDark roasted curry powder, a fine attention to the balance of salty-sour-sweet, wholesome red rice and toasted curry leaves, plenty of coconut milk and chili heat. These are the flavors of Sri Lanka, a South Asian island at the crossroads of centuries of migration and trade. Three waves of colonization - Portuguese, Dutch and British - and the Chinese laborers who came with them, left their culinary imprint on Sri Lankan food. Sri Lankan cooking with its many vegetarian dishes gives testimony to the presence of a multi-ethnic and multi -religious population.\nCan we choose the good parts of our culture to cherish, and leave the darker aspects behind? I hope so. I hope food can help provide a pathway there. Come together at our table, sharing coconut milk rice and pol sambol, paruppu and jackfruit curry. Linger over the chai-just one more cup. Eat, drink, and share joy.

Vegan Serendib: Recipes from Sri Lanka

Cookbooks, Food & Wine

Regional & International

Serendib Press

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