When I Hit You: Or, A Portrait of the Writer as a Young Wife
“Barely a page went by without my wanting to underline at least a sentence. Kandasamy’s prose is electric, at once brave and poetic and satirical as she pokes holes in the mythoi of marriage, gender, intellectualism, and art.”
Shortlisted, Women’s Prize for Fiction 2018 · Shortlisted, Jhalak Prize and The Hindu Prize · Longlisted, International Dylan Thomas Prize · Book of the Year 2017 — The Guardian, The Observer, The Telegraph, Financial Times, The Irish Times · New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice
Seduced by politics, poetry and an enduring dream of building a better world together, the unnamed narrator falls in love with a university professor. Moving with him to a rain-washed town, she swiftly learns that what for her is a beautiful bond of love is for him a contract of ownership. As he sets about reducing her to his idealised version of an obedient wife, bullying her and devouring her ambition of being a writer, she attempts to push back — a resistance he resolves to break with violence and rape.
At once the chronicle of an abusive marriage and a celebration of the invincible power of art, When I Hit You is a smart, fierce and courageous take on wedlock in modern India.
“Meena Kandasamy’s vivid, sharp and precise writing makes a triumph of When I Hit You.” — Ayọ̀bámi Adébáyọ̀, The Guardian
“Urgent, searing.” — The New York Times
“This visceral and sophisticated account is both terrifying and triumphant.” — Publishers Weekly
“Searing … I read it in a single sitting.” — Fatima Bhutto
“Kandasamy boasts the gifts of clarity and momentum, punch and coherence.” — Bidisha, Times Literary Supplement
Read Deepa D’s review in The Wire.