Meena Kandasamy

Meena Kandasamy (2012)

Meena Kandasamy (* 1984 in Tamil Nadu , India ) is an Indian writer, translator and activist. Her work deals with feminism and the Indian caste system .

Life

Meena Kandasamy holds a PhD as a linguist from Anna University , Chennai . In 2006 she published her first volume of poetry, Touch , in which she deals with the subject of feminism , the linguistic identity in India and its caste system. It has been translated into several languages, a selection in German translation from this volume as well as from the second volume of poetry Ms Militancy was published in 2014 by Verlag das Wunderhorn . In 2009 she was a participant in the International Writing Program at the University of Iowa and later in other funding programs in the USA. It publishes the bimonthly English-language magazine The Dalit ( Dalit the Untouchables , after the name of the Indian caste from which they come).

She translates from Tamil into English texts by Periyar EV Ramasamy , Thol. Thirumavalavan, Kasi Anandan, Cheran and VIS Jayapalan.

She made her debut as an actress in the film Oraalppokkam .

Works

in English

• Touch , Peacock Books, Mumbai 2006.
• with M. Nisar: Ayyankali . A Dalit leader of Organic Protest . With a foreword by Kancha Ilaiah, Other Books, Calicut, January 2008.
• Ms. Militancy , Navayana 2010.
  • Miss Militancy . Translation by Raphael Urweider . Wunderhorn, Heidelberg 2014, ISBN 978-3-88423-479-2 .
• The Gypsy Goddess , Atlantic Books 2014.
• When I Hit You: Or, A Portrait of the Writer as a Young Wife . Atlantic Books, 2017

in German language

• Meena Kandasamy: Beatings . A portrait of the author as a young wife. CulturBooks , Hamburg 2020, ISBN 978-3-95988-165-4 ( taz.de ).

Web links

official website of the author

Individual evidence

• Chakraborty, Abin; Jana, Ujjwal (2012). "Venomous Touch: Meena Kandasamy and the Poetics of Dalit Resistance" (PDF). Journal of Postcolonial Cultures and Societies 3. , accessed July 10, 2014.