Nine Yard Sarees

Winner of the 2024 Singapore Literature Prize

Grandmother. Mothers. Daughters. Aunts. Girlfriends. Beloved. Estranged. Becoming.

Prasanthi Ram’s award-winning debut is a multigenerational portrait of nine women within and beyond one Tamil Brahmin family, the Srinivasans.

Nine Yard Sarees takes us from 1950s India to contemporary Singapore, Australia and the US through eleven interconnected stories. Following these women across decades as they navigate oppressive structures such as patriarchy, casteism and homophobia, this story cycle is a resonant portrayal of the evolving diasporic experience – full of humour, grief, heart and unforgettable characters.

‘An uncommonly rich and precise debut, closely observed, magically empathetic and formally ambitious. If you love the stories of Jhumpa Lahiri, you will love this.’ Jee Leong Koh

‘With visceral writing and razor-sharp characterisation, Ram masterfully traverses the grey areas that surround our family lives.’ VOGUE Singapore

‘Sings and swells in all its polyphonic glory.’ The Straits Times

‘A thoroughly enjoyable and meaningful work of fiction about family, community and the reverberations of migration and displacement.’ Balli Kaur Jaswal

‘A gripping, masterfully crafted work that is both haunting and comforting. I read it in one night.’ Akshita Nanda

‘A unique perspective on the immigrant experience. Nine Yard Sarees expresses the power of family, the fortitude of women, and the resilience of the human spirit.’ Latha

‘Populated by a rich cast of characters you immediately fall in love with, these linked stories are bursting at the seams with tenderness and heart.’ Cheryl Julia Lee

Prasanthi Ram is a Singaporean writer of Tamil descent. Her debut work of fiction Nine Yard Sarees won the Singapore Literature Prize (SLP) for English Fiction in 2024; it was also shortlisted for SLP's Best Debut as well as Singapore Book Awards' Best Literary Work. Her short stories and personal essays have been published widely. In 2020, she co-founded Mahogany Journal, an online literary journal that platforms South Asian writers in Singapore. Most recently, she was a recipient of the 2025 NAC-NLB Writer's Lab residency. She hopes to write more fiction that places Tamil characters and their diverse experiences on the literary map.

If you enjoyed Nine Yard Sarees, we suggest:

• Flying through the years in multigenerational novels like Pachinko by Min Jin Lee, The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri or Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi

• Looking for strong female characters leaving home (and coming back again) in Sea Green by Barbara Hanrahan and Yñiga by Glenn Diaz

• Finding the connections in short story cycles like The House of Youssef by Yumna Kassab, Girl, Woman, Other by Bernardine Evaristo or even The Canterbury Tales by Chaucer

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