When I Hit You: SHORTLISTED FOR THE WOMEN'S PRIZE FOR FICTION 2018

By Meena Kandasamy

SHORTLISTED FOR THE WOMEN'S PRIZE FOR FICTION 2018
LONGLISTED FOR THE DYLAN THOMAS PRIZE 2018
SHORTLISTED FOR THE JHALAK PRIZE 2018

Guardian's Best Books of 2017
Daily Telegraph's Best Books of 2017
Observer Best Books of 2017
Financial Times Best Books of 2017

"Meena Kandasamy's vivid, sharp and precise writing makes a triumph of When I Hit You"- Guardian

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 coastal town, she swiftly learns that what for her is a 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 in the process, she attempts to push back - a resistance he resolves to break with violence and rape.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Atlantic Books
• Release date: May 4, 2017
• ISBN: 9781786491275

Meena Kandasamy

Meena Kandasamy 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). The Gypsy Goddess is her first novel.

Reviews for When I Hit You

[d-fbuser-369471376 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

she married a narcisist. reading this book is like watching a horror movie. im glad she's out .

[Penny Colclough · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Fantastic! If this doesn't win The Women's Prize for Fiction 2018 then I don't know how - truly gut-wrenching and harrowing to read!

[Linda Barasa · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Powerful, strikingly emotional. I loved this book so much because there's a lot to trace from it what I've witnessed women around me go through. Highly recommended

[maharamakrishnante · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Those who suffered domestic violence will be able to see glimpses of their own story through this book. A good feminist read for young girls so they will leave relationships of abuse if it happens.

[charl08-1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Told in the first person, this is an powerful account of an abusive marriage in India. Kandasamy's protagonist is no victim, but horribly penned in by her new husband's jealousy and paranoia. From wanting her email passwords to violent abuse, she chronicles the loss of writing career, sense of self and control of her own body, as doctors, family and friends fail to see what is happening and her parents urge her not to leave her husband for fear of loss of 'face'. Tracking her experiences through imagining it as a film, a book, a love letter, the (never named, I think) protagonist distances herself from her own abuse. When she is finally able to leave, which we know has happened at the very beginning of the book, her parents' reactions are some kind of light relief: her mother's attempts to talk about her appearance when she arrived at the family home (her feet!), her father's denial that he has any influence over his daughter. The contrast between her 'modern' freelance lifestyle, and being uninvited from a wedding as a divorced woman, is particularly stark."I am the woman whose reputation is rusting. Who dissolves her once-upon-a-time in vodka with sliced lime, whole green chillies and sea salt. Who swallows it in the sweet heat of a neat whisky and rolls it into tight joints, smoking it up in circles of regret. I wear it in leopard print. I walk it around in red, outrageous stilettos. I take it to every seedy bar in town... I am the woman who did not know this woman myself, wild and ecstatic, trapped inside me. She is the stranger I am taking to town. She is the stranger I am getting to know, the rebellious stranger under my skin who refuses to stand to any judgement."Highly recommended.