Allen & Unwin The Gypsy Goddess book Fiction English Paperback 304 pages

A mighty thunderclap of a novel, The Gypsy Goddess is set to launch Meena Kandasamy as a brazen, inventive, provocative star.

Tamil Nadu, 1968. Village landlords rule over a feudal system that forces peasants to break their backs in the fields or suffer beatings as punishment. In the misery of their daily lives it is little wonder that the Communist Party begins to gain traction, a small spark of defiance spreading from villager to villager. As communities across the region begin to take a stand against the landlords, the landlords vow to break them; Party organizers suffer grisly deaths and the flow of food into the market-places dries up. But it only serves to make the villagers resistance burn more fiercely. Finally, the landlords descend on one village to set an example to the others.

Meena Kandasamy (born 1984) is a poet, fiction writer, translator and activist who is based in Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India. She has published two collections of poetry, Touch (2006) and Ms. Militancy (2010). She holds a PhD in socio-linguistics from Anna University Chennai, has represented India at the University of Iowa's International Writing Program and was made the Charles Wallace India Trust Fellow at the University of Kent, Canterbury. The Gypsy Goddess is her first novel.