UKZN Academic Publishes Short Stories

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Three Poisons, a book written by College of Law and Management Studies Dean of Teaching and Learning, Professor Kriben Pillay, features a collection of three short stories,

The stories are titled: An Unethical Clearance; The Twofold Tamil Rule and Imagining John Lennon.  The collection is based on the Buddhist tradition of the three obstacles to man’s fulfilment namely, greed, ill-will and delusion.  Pillay said the idea for the central story - The Twofold Tamil Rule - came to him after years of absorbing family stories and linking these to personal experiences and he wrote the long story within 10 days, with the assistance of a literature grant from the National Arts Foundation.

‘The stories show how events and things are connected and how we don’t take into account Ubuntu and how dependent we are on each other.  They are also influenced by my observation growing up in a family of Indian settlers. The stories are about the human behaviours that tend to keep us down,’ said Pillay.

In a review of the book published in The Witness newspaper, Pillay’s writing was described as satirical and entertaining and he received praise for his writing skills which he used to paint a vivid picture of the three themes.

Pillay said although the book fell under the creative genre there was academic research embedded in all the stories.

‘I would like the readers to be entertained by the stories and also to think about how things are connected in their own lives. The stories explore human nature and the human psyche which is within my research area in Leadership Studies. As an academic that is how we define research, everything is connected,’ he said.

Thandiwe Jumo