‘Writing should be a calling ideally, not an escape hatch’: Novelist and poet Meena Kandasamy

Meena Kandasamy took the literary world by storm with her first collection of poetry, Touch, in 2006. Two decades hence, her novel Fieldwork as a Sex Object is out. Her other books include Ms Militancy, a book of poems that take on the pretensions of a valorised mythology; and The Orders Were to Rape You, a work that documents the lives of women who gave everything to the Tamil Eelam struggle.

Her novel When I Hit You was shortlisted for the 2018 Women’s Prize.

In a conversation with publisher S Anand of Navayana, Kandasamy spoke about cancel culture, why social media feels so essential to modern existence, and how her parents shaped her as a writer.

Recent developments regarding abusive literary “greats” recall the oft-cited directive to separate the art from the artist. How has this aged today? Is it possible to judge the literary merits of a novel when its authors are known to be bad people?
Pablo Neruda, Pablo Picasso, Anne Sexton – almost every favourite of mine has had a fall from grace. I do not know how to quite answer this question. Obviously, in one’s lifetime, when we see abusers being lauded with awards and recognition, it makes you uncomfortable because deep within, you know it is not in spite of being miserable sociopaths but...

Read more