Speaking on the occasion of Saint Thomas' Day Celebration in New Delhi on the 18th December 1955, the then President of India, Dr. Rajendra Prasad said: "Remember, St. Thomas came to India when many of the countries of Europe had not yet become Christians, and so, those Indians who trace their Christianity to him have a longer history and a higher ancestry than that of Christians of many of the European countries. And it is really a matter of pride to us that it so happened."

Unfortunately, many modern and young members of the Syro-Malabar Church (especially the immigrants and to some extent the members who live as migrants outside Kerala and India) have no idea about the history, traditions, customs, conventions, ceremonies, folk literatures, festivities, and ancestry of the community. By going through Chacko - the Coffin Maker, they will have, not only the pleasure of enjoying an elegant novel but also a deeper understanding of the community they belong to.

For those who do not belong to the Syro-Malabar Catholic community, Chacko - the Coffin Maker will be an absolutely absorbing and artistically admirable story which will give them immense literary delight and a greater appreciation of the community presented in this fiction through dramatic situations. Please note that there is an art in telling a story just as there is an art in singing a song. A good story-teller is a good communicator who grabs the listener by the neck and never loses control. Storytelling is writing in a memorable way mingling experience and wisdom. A reader will certainly realize this fact while making a perusal of Chacko - the Coffin Maker. The novel is indeed a well-constructed, commendable art work of significant cultural exchange value, a grand feast to the lovers of literary fiction.




Prof. C J George, Ph.D., the author of Mulk Raj Anand: His Art and Concerns, Wow! How Quickly She's Picked up English and Miss Mizoram was an officer under Higher & Technical Education Department of the Government of Mizoram, posted at Govt. Champhai College as Professor and Head of the Dept. of English. He retired on superannuation (at the age of 62) on the 31st October 2013. He belongs to the Syrian Catholic community of Kerala and his permanent residence is in Cochin (Kochi), known as the Queen of the Arabian Sea.

Dr George is a poet, essayist and novelist. He has published a number of poems in international poetry magazines and about a dozen research papers in prestigious literary journals. All those poems and essays were collected and edited by Dr F. Lalfakawmi, Ph.D. and thereafter published by the Aryagayathri Publication, Kottayam, Kerala as a book entitled, Influence of the Bible on English Culture, Style, Syntax and Morphology and Other Published Papers & Poems of Dr C J George (ISBN:81-7726-057-X). Dr George now lives at Elamakkara in Kochi, Kerala.



Title: Chacko: The Coffin Maker
Author: C.J. George
Publisher: Adelaide Books
Publisher Website: https://adelaidebooks.org/
Publisher Email: [email protected]
ISBN: 978-1956635195
Price: $19.60
Page Count: 280 pages
Format: Paperback

Description of the company: ADELAIDE BOOKS LLC is a New York based independent company dedicated to publishing literary fiction and creative nonfiction. It was founded in July 2017 as an imprint of the Adelaide Literary Magazine, with the aim to facilitate publishing of novels, memoirs, and collections of short stories, poems, and essays by contributing authors of our magazine and other qualified writers.We believe that in doing so, we best fulfill the mission outlined in Adelaide Magazine – “to promote writers we publish, helping both new and emerging, and established authors reaching a wider literary audience.”

Our motto is: We don’t publish classics, we make classics.