Lifescapes: Interviews with Contemporary Women Writers from Tamil Nadu – K. Srilata & Swarnalatha Rangarajan

Description

This unique anthology presents the experiences and views of seventeen contemporary Tamil women writers whose works explore the implications of being female in Tamil Nadu today, in serious and playful ways. Challenging the rigid, polarising binaries of the ‘inner feminine’, or aham, and the ‘outer masculine’, or puram, prevalent in classical Sangam literature, the writers in this volume draw attention to the inseparability of issues like gender, body politics, caste hegemony, mythopoesis and environmental justice, in their writing.

The candid interviews attempt to not just chart the complex factors that influence their writing lives—economic necessity, familial politics or the pressures of domesticity—but also identify the diverse contexts that frame their literary works. These firebrand women reveal their poetic, poignant, passionate selves as they speak about finding their own voice and place in a male-dominated, and largely male-defined, literary landscape.

Featured Writers • Bama • Brindha Sethu • Ilampirai • Kavin Malar • Kutti Revathi • Malathi Maithri • Manushi Bharathi • R. Meenakshi • Thi. Parameshwari • Perundevi • Sakthi Arulanandam • Sakthi Jothi • Salma • P. Sivakami • Sukirtharani • Thamizhachi Thangapandian • R. Vatsala