The Love Queen of Malabar

"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