![]() ![]() ![]() She initiated several legal proceedings for better employment rights and wages, and for the implementation of prescribed quotas for lower-caste employees and students. Her mother, who was a teacher at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) in Chennai, one of India's premier schools, became subsequently involved in debates around the Brahmin-led domination at the institution. ![]() ![]() Her parents, both low-caste Hindus, or "Dalits" from the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu, got married under the self-respect marriage act. The law, passed in the early 1940s in their state, rejects caste and enables Hindu marriages without the presence of a Brahmin priest, she says. But the motivations behind her work can't be summarized easily, she says: "I don't know where to start."Ī look back at her childhood and family background provides some insight into her work.Ī lot of Kandasamy's writing is the result of her sensitivity to injustice and the battles against inequity she witnessed as a child. Meena Kandasamy said she was in shock when she learned in September that she had won PEN Germany's 2022 Hermann Kesten Prize.ĭW contacted her ahead of the prize ceremony, held on November 15, to discuss her journey as a writer. ![]()
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