A YEAR OF POETRY AT IIC

Conceptualised by Gitanjali Surendran

The Book of Desire: Love Poems from the Kural

In the mood for literary love and desire on Valentine’s Day? Join Meena Kandasamy as she reads love poems from her luminous translation of Kammatu-p-pal, the third section of the Tamil classic Thirukkural. Her rendering will help us discover Thirukkural anew, leading us into a quintessential Tamil world of exaggerated hurt, lovers’ quarrels, evenings full of longing, and the many faces of love and desire.

Meena Kandasamy is an award-winning, poet, writer, translator, anti-caste activist and academic based in India. Among her many books are two devoted to poetry, Ms. Militancy and Touch, and more recently the novel Exquisite Cadavers. She was awarded the Hermann Kesten prize by the PEN Centre, Darmstadt, Germany in 2022.