The Sound of the Kiss, a 16th-century novel from this country, contains many passages that have different meanings in different languages depending on the direction they’re read in. For 10 points each:
[10h] Name this modern-day country where a lost “great narrative” written in the “language of ghouls” provided material for medieval prose works like The Five-and-Twenty Tales of the Genie and What Ten Young Men Did.
ANSWER: India [or Bhārat; or Republic of India; or Bhārat Gaṇarājya] (The Brihatkathā was supposedly written in a language called Paishachī.)
[10e] Two answers required. Early modern Indian experimental authors often showed off by writing palindrome-like texts that somehow summarize both of these two major epic poems. Both of these epics feature avatars of Vishnu.
ANSWER: Rāmāyaṇam AND Mahābhāratam
[10m] Nandin’s novel What Ten Young Men Did uses this type of constrained writing for a chapter whose narrator can’t pronounce labial consonants. Georges Perec’s A Void is one of these texts.
ANSWER: lipograms [accept word forms like lipogrammatic]
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