The Love Queen of Malabar

Kamala Das (1932-2009) 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 stun readers across the globe.

ISBN 0773537910   Pages 280 ISBN13 9780773537910 (What's this?)   Weight (grammes) 567 Publisher McGill-Queen's University Press   Published in Montreal Imprint McGill-Queen's University Press   Height (mm) 234 Format Hardback   Width (mm) 162 Publication date 17 Jan 2011   Spine width (mm) 23 DEWEY 821.914   Academic level Postgraduate DEWEY edition DC22

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
		More...

"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

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