He My Beloved CJ

Rosy Thomas’s best-known work He My Beloved C J is a vivid and heartfelt memoir of her husband C J Thomas the iconic Malayalam playwright and literary critic. Their love story is the stuff that legends are made of as is her memoir. Rosy writes about their life together with verve and subtlety weaving memories reflections and anecdotes together to create an account that is as much about the cultural and political churning in mid-20th c. Kerala as it is that of an unusual and unconventional marriage. Yet her narrative resolutely refuses to either romanticise love or sentimentalise the marital relationship itself. Indeed through a clever use of humour and irony Rosy manages to subvert prevalent notions of wifehood even those held by C J himself! He My Beloved C J then is a woman’s loving rendering of a partnership that included literary pursuits cultural activity and political engagement in all their energy and diversity.