Bound by Culture and the feminist book club





Last evening, that is on Sunday, June 9th, the Lakmahal Feminist Book Club met at the Lakmahal Community Library to discuss V V Ganeshananthan’s Brotherless Night.   There has been much said and written about the book and ‘Sugi’ as the author is to people she knows well has given many interviews in Sri Lanka and overseas and has had many things written about the book.  You can find links to some of these reviews and interviews at the end of this post. 

The discussion at the book club was led by Neloufer de Mel, who has just retired from her position as Chair Professor of English at the Colombo University,  was a former Chairperson of the Gratiaen Trust and who is known for her a feminist scholarship.  She takes a multidisciplinary approach, drawing on literary, cultural, gender and performance studies to examine Sri Lankan socio-political, cultural and literary life. 

The participants were quite diverse – age, gender and ethnicity wise. The shared perspectives were equally diverse.  Did the women in the book, Sashi especially, have agency or didn’t they?  Did the narrative suppress Tamil nationalism and present a more sanitized liberal perspective, or was it a welcome departure from the single story narratives of the heroism of LTTE women cadres? We discussed the emergence of post-conflict literature.  Brotherless Night was sixteen years in the making, how long before we have a novel about the 'Aragalaya'?

And then, the question of what is ‘feminist’ literature?  Sugi is unequivocal that Brotherless Night is a feminist book (see the interview with Radhika Coomaraswamy).  What makes it such? A female author and many strong female characters. Glimpses into gender inequality in Jaffna society.   The style of storytelling – it is generally women who tell stories.  The challenge to the mainstream narrative – I for one was particularly struck by the Prologue that from the onset invited a different reading of events – “ that word terrorist is too simple for the history we have lived”.  It made me think of other words that are also too simple for the lived reality of different people. And it reaffirmed to me what feminist analysis is all about and why in our contemporary cliched world, it is so, so important. (which was one motivation for initiating the feminist book club!!)

I  also picked up recently a collection of essays edited by Selvi Thiruchandran  “Bound by culture” which presents the varied ways in which women from India, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh produce and reproduce art, literature, fairy tales, folklore, street culture, films, theatre, poetry through the prism of gender.  I am unable to put it down – the essays are taking me into realms of understanding the South Asian cultural context that I seem to have missed with my very Anglophilic socialization.  Among other things the essays show how culture constructs the ‘good’ and ‘bad’ woman,  how some folk tales with strong feminist themes are subverted into stereotypes in contemporary commercial productions and it highlights the struggles of women artists. Why does 'Sugi' write as V V Ganeshananthan?

Note to my readers: By the way, this post is more like embarking on journalling practice – just downloading the thoughts that are circling in my brain – so if you have read this far, thank you for indulging me.  

Some reviews and talk with the author of Brotherless Night

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/01/books/review/v-v-ganeshananthan-brotherless-night.html

https://www.theguardian.com/books/article/2024/may/03/brotherless-night-by-vv-ganeshananthan-review-heartbreak-in-war-torn-sri-lanka

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZBPR8hZfjB0

https://www.sundaytimes.lk/240512/plus/whos-afraid-of-brotherless-night-556740.html

 



 

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