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An astonishing adventure into the heart of one of India’s most controversial writers.
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.
The Love Queen of Malabar launched in October, 2010.
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Merrily Weisbord is an award winning author and journalist. Her books include Our Future Selves, The Strangest Dream, The Valour and the Horror — which was on Macleans best-seller list for six weeks — and Dogs with Jobs, for which Weisbord also wrote and created a TV series that aired on the Life Network, CBC, PBS, Oxygen, National Geographic US and National Geographic International which broadcasts to 57 countries. Her book The Love Queen of Malabar was a Finalist for the 2010 Writers’ Trust Non Fiction Prize and The Charles Taylor Prize for Literary Non-Fiction finalist.
For more poetry by Kamala Das click here
Bravo! coverage of the Charles Taylor Prize
More Bravo! coverage, including Arts & Minds interview
TVO debate between Charles Taylor Prize finalists
Download high resolution image of The Love Queen cover
Download pictures from inside the book
Download picture from the book launch
Download pictures of the author, Merrily Weisbord
Download pictures from the Charles Taylor Prize events
Quotes from The Love Queen of Malabar
“Whatever our pasts, we are here now and we know who we are,” I say. “It is interesting that although we are from incredibly different cultures, both of us have survived with some strength.”
“‘I was seeped in misery and now I am verdant with adolescent dreams,’ she says. ‘I shall not be bounded by age, illness, widowhood. It’s only that we should have confidence. I plan a little mischief, distribute myself to the cannibals, and grow stronger.'”
“She must also feel that I have grown to love her – her brilliant poetic sensibility, her playfulness, warmth, vulnerability, courage, and physical charisma. I have grown used to her mercurial nature, her need for love and assurance, her contradictions. I enjoy what she calls her “rustic” love of jewellery, and her female vanity. I am captivated, as are many, by her generous and total giving of self – stories, politics, flirtation, conversation, munificence – that metamorphoses her modest Cochin apartment into a grand, other-century salon.”
“She propagates amorality based on love and mocks mindless convention, but she draws on traditionally based standards of purity to maintain her dignity and self-respect. As she wrote in notes to herself, ‘I speak for the cause of female emancipation, attack the hypocrisy of conventional morality, but seek fulfillment within the nest of traditional values.'”
“Her face scrunches, body rocks back, head unhinges, laugh lines ring her diamond-studded nose and lipsticked mouth, eyes close, and she forgets to hide her parted lips with her hand as she dissolves into mirth. Never have I seen her so openly joyful.”
“My bond with Kamala is greater than I can express. She shared her life with me and entrusted me with her history, her confidences, carte blanche use of her work, and the responsibility of writing about the life she had revealed.”
The Love Queen of Malabar in the press
Chronicle of a beautiful friendship: Merrily Weisbord introduces Canadians to Kamala Das – The Gazette review
A conversation about love – The Globe and Mail review
Merrily Weisbord and Kamala Das: Reciprocal revelations – Globe and Mail interviews Merrily Weisbord
Remembering the Love Queen – McGill news interviews Merrily Weisbord
Biography of a Friendship – reviewed by Rover
Merrily Weisbord talks about The Love Queen of Malabar on CBC’s Masala Canada
Kamala sutra – India Today
The Love Queen reviewed by Montreal Serai
The Love Queen of Malabar in the South Asian Post
Félicitons Merrily Weisbord, finaliste – Le Journal des citoyens
Is the truth stranger than non-fiction? – Charles Taylor finalists interviewed by The National Post
A refugee from a traumatized office – The Globe and Mail
We’re ignoring vital issues – Weisbord editorial in The Globe and Mail
It’s a matter of ought or not – Weisbord editorial in The Globe and Mail
Exclusive excerpt: The rebirth of Kamala Das’s passion – The Globe and Mail
William St-Hilaire’s bedtime books – The Globe and Mail
The Love Queen of Malabar in The Weekly Voice
To a Malabar Chameleon – Outlook India
Talking love, sex, religion with Kamala – Daily News and Analysis
Loving the Queen of Malabar – Rover
‘He asked me to become a Muslim’ – Tehelka
Remembering Kamala Das – Business Standard
Quotes from the press & reviews
“And so The Love Queen of Malabar is something of a thriller about censorship and transgression; it is an homage to a woman who, as Weisbord’s stepmother puts it, is “so powerful she wraps herself around your heart”; it is about the dance of female friendship, of our women as our sounding boards, our mirrors and our foils; it is about authorship, where the writer ends and the fiction begins; it is about refuting, reveling in and transcending the body. It is a treat, an eavesdropping, and by the end, we sense how much has been left out. It makes me curious and it makes me want in, to talk to Merrily, to know—what it was like, what she was like… A force.” – The Rover, read the full review
“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, read the full review
“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.” – The Globe and Mail, read the full interview
“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
“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
September 22-25 – Merrily Weisbord at the Kingston WritersFest
October 12-23 – Merrily Weisbord at Edmonton Litfest 2011
Writer’s Trust Non-Fiction Prize finalist (2010)
The Charles Taylor Prize for Literary Non-Fiction finalist (2011)
Quebec Writers’ Federation Mavis Gallant Prize for Non-Fiction finalist (2011)
Canada Reads: True Stories Top 40 finalist (2012)
For review copy requests or questions:
Jacqueline Davis
Publicist
McGill-Queen’s University Press
1010 Sherbrooke, Suite 1720
Montreal, QC H3A 2R7
Tel: (514) 398-2555
Fax: (514) 398-4333
jacqueline.davis@mcgill.ca
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