The Hangman's Journal

‘A meditation on nothing less than the human condition itself...a work of understated but awesome power’ —Outlook For over thirty years Janardhanan Pillai was the aratchar the hangman on call for the prison authorities in the kingdom of Travancore and after Independence the states of Kerala and Tamil Nadu. After the courts had passed a death sentence it was left to him to put the condemned man to death swiftly and clinically. Each time he returned from the gallows he told himself that it would be the last time. But he went back a hundred and seventeen times. Based on Pillai’s life The Hangman’s Journal takes us into the mind of a man struggling to come to terms with his dharma his conscience and his shame. A meditation on life and death and what it means to end a life this haunting novel is one of the finest works of contemporary Indian fiction.