Meena Kandasamy ‘If I was going to write my life story, I would condense that marriage to a footnote’
over 5 years in The guardian
The author of Women’s prize shortlisted novel When I Hit You talks about the troubling line between memoir and fiction and how Brexit politics shaped her new book
After reading her playful, political novels – described by reviewers as “explosive” and “radical” – it’s a surprise to find Meena Kandasamy to be quiet and diffident in person. Today this may be because she is not feeling well; she keeps a scarf wrapped around her throughout our conversation. But also, as she tells me: “I think I’m much better writing down what I feel.”
We meet in Belfast’s Grand Central hotel, an opulent symbol of the city’s post-Troubles renaissance and a landmark that celebrates local literary history: walls, exterior paving and even the revolving doors display work by poet Paul Muldoon. Kandasamy is in Belfast to promote her new novel Exquisite Cadavers, but it’s impossible to talk about this without first discussing her last novel When I Hit You: Or, a Portrait of the Artist As a Young Wife, to which the new book is in part a response. Continue reading...
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