About the Author
Meena Kandasamy (born 1984) is a poet, fiction writer, translator and activist who is based in Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India. She has published two collections of poetry, Touch (2006) and Ms. Militancy (2010), and the critically acclaimed novel, Gypsy Goddess.www.meenakandasamy.com
Featured books by Meena Kandasamy
When I Hit You: Or, A Portrait of the Writer as a Young Wife
Set in modern India, this remarkable novel lays bare potent – and harrowing – universal truths about toxic masculinity and the physical and psychological abuse of women that’s often silenced, ignored or unnoticed. “I am the woman who asked for tenderness and was raped in return. I am the woman who has done her sentence. I am the woman who still believes, broken-heartedly in love”, so states the unnamed protagonist, an educated young woman whose every freedom is curtailed when she marries a university professor. Her silencing begins immediately, when they move to “a strange town that does not speak any of her mother tongues” and he begins to control every aspect of her life. “Come off Facebook”, he orders. When she dares question him, the punch line is dealt: if she loves him, she will do as he asks. Soon after, he takes control of her email account too, and she makes herself blank, plain, for plainness “will prevent arguments”. She tells her parents, but the shame of a broken marriage must be avoided above all else, even though he rapes to disable her, even though her abuse and isolation is all consuming. But, while he ridicules her writing, and accuses her of being mad, she writes in secret as an act of defiance, and she has a hidden weapon in her arsenal. Stylistically, at times this put me in mind of the brilliant Jean Rhys. The writing is precise, intense, brutally honest, and analytical, and the unforgettable narrator reveals truths that need to be told, gives voice to thousands of women who need to be heard. Courageous and clever, this offers incomparably powerful insights into the manifold means by which men abuse women, and the complex dynamics of abusive relationships. ~ Joanne Owen
Other books by Meena Kandasamy
When I Hit You: Or, A Portrait of the Writer as a Young Wife
Set in modern India, this remarkable novel lays bare potent – and harrowing – universal truths about toxic masculinity and the physical and psychological abuse of women that’s often silenced, ignored or unnoticed. “I am the woman who asked for tenderness and was raped in return. I am the woman who has done her sentence. I am the woman who still believes, broken-heartedly in love”, so states the unnamed protagonist, an educated young woman whose every freedom is curtailed when she marries a university professor. Her silencing begins immediately, when they move to “a strange town that does not speak any of her mother tongues” and he begins to control every aspect of her life. “Come off Facebook”, he orders. When she dares question him, the punch line is dealt: if she loves him, she will do as he asks. Soon after, he takes control of her email account too, and she makes herself blank, plain, for plainness “will prevent arguments”. She tells her parents, but the shame of a broken marriage must be avoided above all else, even though he rapes to disable her, even though her abuse and isolation is all consuming. But, while he ridicules her writing, and accuses her of being mad, she writes in secret as an act of defiance, and she has a hidden weapon in her arsenal. Stylistically, at times this put me in mind of the brilliant Jean Rhys. The writing is precise, intense, brutally honest, and analytical, and the unforgettable narrator reveals truths that need to be told, gives voice to thousands of women who need to be heard. Courageous and clever, this offers incomparably powerful insights into the manifold means by which men abuse women, and the complex dynamics of abusive relationships. ~ Joanne Owen
When I Hit You
SHORTLISTED FOR THE WOMEN'S PRIZE FOR FICTION 2018 LONGLISTED FOR THE DYLAN THOMAS PRIZE 2018 SHORTLISTED FOR THE JHALAK PRIZE 2018 Guardian's Best Books of 2017 Daily Telegraph's Best Books of 2017 Observer Best Books of 2017 Financial Times Best Books of 2017 Meena Kandasamy's vivid, sharp and precise writing makes a triumph of When I Hit You: Or, a Portrait of the Writer as a Young Wife(Atlantic) - Guardian Seduced by politics, poetry and an enduring dream of building a better world together, the unnamed narrator falls in love with a university professor. Moving with him to a rain-washed coastal town, she swiftly learns that what for her is a bond of love is for him a contract of ownership. As he sets about reducing her to his idealised version of an obedient wife, bullying her and devouring her ambition of being a writer in the process, she attempts to push back - a resistance he resolves to break with violence and rape.
The Gypsy Goddess
LONGLISTED FOR 2014 DYLAN THOMAS PRIZE Laugh-out-loud funny, brilliantly original and angry, The Gypsy Goddess is as much a novel about a true-life massacre as it is a novel about the impossibility of writing a novel about a true-life massacre. It sits on the line between powerful fiction and fearsome critique. Tamil Nadu, 1968. Village landlords rule over a feudal system that forces peasants to break their backs in the fields or suffer beatings as punishment. In the misery of their daily lives it is little wonder that the Communist Party begins to gain traction, a small spark of defiance spreading from villager to villager. As communities across the region begin to take a stand against the landlords, the landlords vow to break them; Party organizers suffer grisly deaths and the flow of food into the market-places dries up. But it only serves to make the villagers' resistance burn more fiercely. Finally, the landlords descend on one village to set an example to the others...
The Gypsy Goddess
LONGLISTED FOR 2014 DYLAN THOMAS PRIZE Laugh-out-loud funny, brilliantly original and angry, The Gypsy Goddess is as much a novel about a true-life massacre as it is a novel about the impossibility of writing a novel about a true-life massacre. It sits on the line between powerful fiction and fearsome critique. Tamil Nadu, 1968. Village landlords rule over a feudal system that forces peasants to break their backs in the fields or suffer beatings as punishment. In the misery of their daily lives it is little wonder that the Communist Party begins to gain traction, a small spark of defiance spreading from villager to villager. As communities across the region begin to take a stand against the landlords, the landlords vow to break them; Party organizers suffer grisly deaths and the flow of food into the market-places dries up. But it only serves to make the villagers' resistance burn more fiercely. Finally, the landlords descend on one village to set an example to the others...
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