The Love Queen of Malabar: Memoir of a Friendship with Kamala Das
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."
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An astonishing adventure into the heart of one of India’s most controversial writers.
1 Cochin, Munnar, Kovalam, South India, 1995\ The Stranger and I 3\ An Introduction 10\ Love in Another Country 17\ Esoteric Exotica 26\ Lines Addressed to a Devadesi 42\ 2 Montreal, Laurentian Mountains, New York, 1995\ Maple Leaves Red as Drying Blood 51\ I Shall Carry You with Me 61\ Child Bride 75\ Riding a Tiger 88\ 3 Delhi, Cochin, Kovalam, 1997\ Orbits of Friendship 107\ Life Is but a Dream 120\ The Husband Who Neither Loved nor Used Her but Was a Ruthless Watcher 126\ 4 Cochin, Calicut, Malabar, 2000\ Bliss in the Scent of His Perspiration 141\ Beyond the Outskirts of the City 155\ The Fear of the Year 168\ A Pale Green Pond 177\ 5 The Laurentians, Montreal, 2000\ Gift of a Man 189\ The Depth of Sequestered Pools 202\ 6 Cochin, 2003\ A Touch of Moonlight 209\ You Embrace Me 218\ 7 Cochin, 2004\ Exhalations 229\ A Cloudburst of Intense Fantasy 237\ 8 Cochin, Punnayurkulam, 2005\ That Close to Me 247\ The Place of Quiet Happiness 257\ Epilogue 267\ Acknowledgments 269\ Bibliography 273
\ From the Publisher"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, Faculty of Religious Studies, McGill University\ \ \
