Tell us a story
LoveReading is thrilled to announce the launch of The Very Short Story Award 2019! If you think you have a story we'll love, click here to find out more and how to enter:
Find out more
LoveReading is thrilled to announce the launch of The Very Short Story Award 2019! If you think you have a story we'll love, click here to find out more and how to enter:
Find out moreMeena 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
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
La segunda novela de Kandasamy la ha situado en los altares de la novela contemporanea India. La historia de una joven atrapada en las redes de un marido tirnico. Un relato estremecedor, valeroso y feminista. Seducida por la conviccin poltica, la poesa y el sueo de compartir un hermoso proyecto vital, la annima narradora de esta novela se enamora de un profesor universitario marxista y se muda con l a una lluviosa ciudad costera del sur de la India. Pronto descubrir que el vnculo de amor por ella imaginado es para l un contrato de propiedad que la reduce a la condicin de esposa complaciente y sumisa. Aquel hombre de nobilsimos ideales inicia una asalto implacable a su cuerpo y su mente para cerrarle todos los caminos y, en ltima instancia, negarle el derecho a una existencia propia. No hay territorio donde l renuncie a imponer su dominio.Cuando ella reacciona, cuando busca vas de escape, l intenta quebrar su resistencia con un brutal tratamiento de golpes y violaciones. La literatura es el nico refugio en ese infierno domstico sostenido por la indiferencia de una sociedad que solo espera silencio y resignacin. Nadie la va a salvar, solo ella puede hacerlo."e;Un puetazo en el estmago"e;The Wire"e;Lo mejor que he ledo en 2017. Lelo como un poema en prosa, un himno feminista o un experimento con la vida, pero lelo."e;The Daily O"e;De lectura urgente... esta novela late a travs de una bsqueda universalmente reconocida de libertad en un mundo donde las mujeres todava estn sorprendentemente infravaloradas."e;Financial Times"e;Su lectura abrasa."e;The Guardian
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
Meena Kandasamy erzahlt von dem Massaker in Kilvenami (Sud-Indien), bei dem 1968 vierundvierzig Dorfbewohner - landlose Dalit (Unberuhrbare - in einer Hutte verbrannt wurden. Sie hatten sich der Kommunistischen Partei angeschlossen und das Undenkbare gewagt: die Stimme zu erheben fur eine halbe Portion Reis mehr am Tag. Der Roman bezeugt den Justizskandal, in dem Polize, Politiker und Richter zum Erhalt der Macht der Grundgesitzer beitrugen. Aber was heit, Kandasamy erzhlt? Kann sie das, die 16 Jahre nach dem Massaker Geborene, der die Geschichte nur durch mndliche Berichte, Zeitungsartikel und Gerichtsakten zugnglich ist? Kandasamy zerstrt lustvoll alle Erwartungshaltungen an Form und Sprache, kokettiert nicht mit Exotismus oder gebtem Storytelling.
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...
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...
If this is your author page then you can share your Twitter updates with your readers right here on LoveReading
Find out moreIf this is your author page then you can share your Facebook updates with your readers right here on LoveReading
Find out more