In India, Meena Kandasamy is known as a poet, an outspoken activist on political issues (women's rights, caste issues, beef eating), an academic and even an actress. With the publication of her first novel, The Gypsy Goddess , she can call herself an author. She talks to
The first reason is my disappointment with Indian fiction. There are great Indian fiction writers. Some are really brilliant. But in part they have become very lazy. Some writing is what we call the stereotypical "sari-mango" novel. Or people of my age writing novels that take place across airports. Or people of an older generation reminiscing about cooking and spices. I didn't want to write what was safe or comfortable.
The village of Kilvenmani has been fighting against landlords, against forced recruitment into their land association. This village, which is full of untouchable people, is really militant. They are seeking higher wages, and what happens on December 25, 1968, is that the landlords and the mobs plan a rampage. They visit this village and leave 44 people dead. It is heartbreaking, cruel and tragic. This novel is not just a lament, or a resistance or a kind of militancy. It asks: "How do you get people who are totally unconnected with the story to feel for these people? How do you translate a landless agricultural worker in the 1960s who speaks only Tamil into a foreign language, a time he doesn't know and an audience who don't know what it means to go into the field."