Rajni Mala Khelawan is an Indo-Fijian Canadian writer who lives in Calgary, Alberta.
Fiction
The End of the Dark and Stormy Night
Bloomington, IN: Trafford Publishing, 2008.
Publisher’s Synopsis (From its website)
Ma misses the sun, warmth and colors of their faraway homeland, but her daughter sees magic in everything — the clouds in the winter sky, the “firework” display when she throws an armful of snow into the air, making snow angels, tasting snowflakes. And in the end, her joy is contagious. Home is where family is, after all.
If we assume that God exists, what path do you think will lead straight to Salvation?
In this hilarious, tongue-in-cheek novel set in Elkford, British Columbia, Mrs. Anand believes that not eating cows is the answer. For this reason, she hates Jesse, the red-haired cow eater who married her talentless writer son, Ravi.
Mrs. Hicks, a legalist, is convinced that Salvation only comes to those who are born-agains. And that Jesus hates lesbians. What Mrs. Hicks does not know is that her only daughter, Elisha, is a full-blown lesbian, her son, a porn addict, and her husband, an adulterous man.
Elisha, who is in love with the half Jamaican single mother wonders how exactly born-again lesbians find Salvation. She wonders if the mysterious stranger who wears a top hat and carries a garbage bag full of only-God-knows-what knows the answer to this eternal quest that plagues our characters’ everyday existence.
Rich with a multicultural cast, irreverent humor, and a twist of magic, Rajni Mala Khelawan weaves a tale of ordinary people seeking to end the blindness that corrupts their lives.
Fiction
Kalyana
Toronto: Second Story Press, 2016.
Publisher’s Synopsis (From its website)
Ma misses the sun, warmth and colors of their faraway homeland, but her daughter sees magic in everything — the clouds in the winter sky, the “firework” display when she throws an armful of snow into the air, making snow angels, tasting snowflakes. And in the end, her joy is contagious. Home is where family is, after all.
Growing up in the Fiji Islands in the late 1960s, Kalyana Mani Seth is an impressionable, plump young girl suited to the meaning of her name: blissful, blessed, the auspicious one. Her mother educates Kalyana about her Indian heritage, vividly telling tales of mischievous Krishna and powerful Mother Kali, and recounting her grandparents’ migration to the tiny, British colony.
While the island nation celebrates its recently granted independence, new stories of the feminist revolution in America are carried over the waves of the Pacific to Kalyana’s ears: stories of women who live with men who are not their husbands, who burn their bras, who are free to do as they please. Strange as all this sounds, Kalyana hopes that she will be blessed with a husband who allows her a similar sense of liberty.
But nothing prepares her for the trauma of womanhood and the cultural ramifications of silence and shame, as her mother tells her there are some family stories that should never be told.