Meena Kandasamy

Meena Kandasamy is a poet, fiction writer, translator and activist who lives in London. She has published two collections of poetry, Touch and Ms. Militancy, and has performed her work at literature festivals around the world. The Gypsy Goddess, her critically acclaimed novel about the 1968 Kilvenmani massacre of 44 Dalit agricultural labourers in Tanjore, was chosen as the Independent’s debut of the year and shortlisted for several awards.

Her second novel, When I Hit You: Or, The Portrait of the Writer as a Young Wife was published this year. She was a fellow of the international writing program at the University of Iowa in 2009, and a British Council Charles Wallace fellow in 2011. She holds a PhD in sociolinguistics and has written for Al Jazeera, the Hindu, India Today, Himal and Newsweek’s Middle East edition, among other places. Her work has appeared in 18 languages.