‘Wooden Cow is a triumph of translation; Lakshmi Kannan captures the ambience of rural and urban Tamil Nadu without peppering the narrative with words from the original language. She uses words like arasilai and dharbai (with glossary) only because there are no equivalents in English. Her eight-page note “A Dappled Deer or a Growling Leopard?” discusses the problems of translation. Her interactions with Janakiraman reveal the personal side of the writer. Anita Balakrishnan’s Introduction “A Cadence of Life”, discusses the main themes of his work.’

Shyamala A. Narayan, “From the Pen of an Iconoclast”, The Book Review, Vol XLVI, Number 2, 2nd February, 2022