January meeting: An Evening With Meena Kandasamy

group 2012 meetings 2 Minutes

Our January meeting with be at Blackwell’s Book Shop, 48-51 Broad Street, Oxford on Wednesday 29th January 7pm – 9pm.

Writer’s at Blackwell’s is delighted to be welcoming Meena Kandasamy who will be exploring her new book Exquisite Cadavers, a book told in two parts, making it a unique and special read. With the story on one side, the other hosts side notes by Meena exploring her creative process in forming this story.

Meena will be discussing her inspiration for writing Exquisite Cadavers and much more.

Synopsis

Karim and Maya:

[x] share a home

[x] worry about money

[x] binge-watch films

[x] argue all the time

Karim, a young film-maker, carries with him the starry-eyed dreams of the Arab Revolution. Maya carries her own pressing concerns: an errant father, an unstable job, a chain-smoking habit, a sudden pregnancy. When Karim’s brother disappears in Tunis, and Karim wants to go after him, Maya must choose between her partner and her home city, her future and her history…

In a conversation between forms, fictions and truths, ‘Exquisite Cadavers’ is a novel about a young couple navigating love in London, and a literary hall of mirrors about an author navigating the inspirations behind her work.

 

This is a meeting not to be missed.

Meena Kandasamy has actively sought to combine her love for the written word with the struggle for social justice through poetry, translation, fiction and essays for the last fifteen years.

Her debut collection of poems, ‘Touch’ was themed around caste and untouchability, and her second, ‘Ms Militancy’, was an explosive, feminist retelling/reclaiming of Tamil and Hindu myths. Her critically acclaimed first (anti)novel, ‘The Gypsy Goddess’, smudged the line between powerful fiction and fearsome critique in narrating the 1968 massacre of forty-four landless untouchable men, women and children striking for higher wages in the village of Kilvenmani, Tanjore.

Her second novel, a work of auto-ficition, ‘When I Hit You: Or, The Portrait of the Writer As A Young Wife’, drew upon her own experience within an abusive marriage, to lift the veil on the silence that surrounds domestic violence and marital rape in modern India. It was selected as book of the year by The Guardian, The Observer, Daily Telegraph and Financial Times; and was shortlisted for the Women’s Prize for Fiction 2018 among others.

Tickets cost £5 or £30 for a years membership to the group. For all other enquiries, please email events.oxford@blackwell.co.uk or call 01865 333623.

Published by mosteshar

I started The Oxford Editors in 2007 to help writers at every stage and in every genre. We have a strong academic tradition as well as working with writers of fiction, non-fiction and poetry. We also help children's writers, playwrights, screen writers and business writers. We offer a wide set of services for writers from mentoring, manuscript assessment, copy editing, proof reading, ghost writing, query letter writing, literary agent search, and much more. We will write your blog for you, perfect that speech or help you self-publish that book. If you write, our team of published authors, publishing industry experts and academics can help you. My bio: I am an award-winning writer and editor working on academic, non-fiction and fiction manuscripts. I regularly work with fiction and children’s writers as well as doctoral students. I have also edited books and papers for academics throughout the world, and for many authors at publishers including Oxford University Press, Harvard University Press and Yale University Press. I have also guided many writers of fiction to publishing success. I am an author, ghost writer and an international journalist. After the publication of my book, Unveiled: Love and Death Among the Ayatollahs, Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Khamenei condemned me as ‘a notorious man-hater’ for the book’s strong attack on the violation of women’s rights in Iran. I also work with writers as a mentor and I have guided authors of fiction, non-fiction and academic works. My latest book, a crime thriller, will be published soon. I worked for many years at The Financial Times, The Independent and The Guardian and has been a regular contributor to The Economist. I have also written for The Washington Post, The New York Times, The South China Morning Post and many other newspapers and magazines worldwide. I have appeared on the BBC – including Radio 4’s the Today programme and on Newsnight. I have edited several major academic studies, and also edited books by professors at Oxford and Harvard – among others. As well as writing fiction for adults and children. I have also written several screenplays.

Published

2 thoughts on “January meeting: An Evening With Meena Kandasamy”

  1. Thanks so much for keeping in touch although I haven’t been able to get to your recent meetings. The next event sounds really interesting and I will move heaven and earth to be with you that evening. Meena Kandasamy sound as if she will be very interesting.
    I have sorely missed your meetings in Blackwells but have been very focussed on getting the sorties ready for publication in Feb 2020.
    All very exciting but absolutely NO time for ANYTHING ELSE.
    Liz Henderson

    Reply

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