The Love Queen of Malabar
Memoir of a Friendship with Kamala Das
Description
Kamala Das (1934-2009) is one of India's most beloved and controversial literary figures. She was hailed and reviled as the first Indian woman to write an autobiographical cult classic about love and desire. Admirers dubbed her, "The First Feminist Emotional Revolutionary of Our Time." The tabloid press called her "The Love Queen of Malabar." Merrily Weisbord found Das's work so compelling that she flew to South India to meet her. The Love Queen of Malabar is the story of their decade-long friendship, an experiment in mutual revelation. Recounting the development of their relationship, Weisbord relates the dramatic events of Das's life, including her transition from celibacy to sexual awakening at age sixty-seven when, provoking the greatest scandal of her notorious life, she converted to Islam for love and renewal. Both observer and direct participant, Weisbord elegantly presents new biographical insights and cultural details about Kerala and India without exoticisation or stereotyping. The Love Queen of Malabar is an evocative and beautifully crafted work, as seamless as the finest novel, and will captivate readers across the globe.
Reviews
"The Love Queen of Malabar is a portrait of Kamala Das, a remarkable poet, memoirist and public figure who dared to challenge many of India's taboos around sexuality. It is also the chronicle of an evolving friendship - wonderfully evocative in its use of language and dialogue - and it is a sensitive discussion of issues relevant to the lives of women and writers. Highly engaging and honest, it is a model of writing across cultures and continents." Sherry Simon, author of Translating Montreal: Episodes in the Life of a Divided City
"As if to test Mark Twain's pronouncement "truth is stranger than fiction,' two women - the award-winning journalist Merrily Weisbord from Canada, and the internationally acclaimed Indian writer Kamala Das - engage in an experiment of revealing to each other their experiences of men, motherhood, and writing. The intimate truths revealed here will stun the literary world and intrigue readers everywhere. This literary biography is a tour de force that reads like a well-crafted novel." Katherine K. Young, James McGill Professor, McGill University
"The Love Queen of Malabar is fascinating conversation between two strong-minded women, a narrative set in two countries and many cultures. It proves that none of us fit under one label or one identity, but are complex and contradictory and simply stuck with the messiness of our lives." The Globe and Mail
"The Love Queen of Malabar is an evocative and beautifully crafted work, as seamless as the finest novel, and will captivate readers across the globe." South Asian Post
"The Love Queen of Malabar is something of a thriller about censorship and transgression; an homage to a woman who is so powerful she wraps herself around your heart." roverarts.com
"If she was less original or less determined, Weisbord could always have written a novel. But few novelists exploring similar exotic cultures these days produce work of such high literary quality as The Love Queen of Malabar." John Barber, Globe and Mail