CHENNAI: “A woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction,” penned Virginia Woolf in her seminal work ‘ Room of One’s Own, 1929. This singular line has travelled across decades and found itself on posters, in courses on reading and gender, and posed as a dogged anthem for women writers. She mulls how women were rejected entry into university libraries, finds bookshelves filled with work by men, and female characters written through the male gaze.
Since Woolf’s time, women have secured the right to vote, taken to the streets in protests for their rights, and broken the locks of libraries. Many — without a room of their own or money — have continued to scrawl their thoughts whether in hidden attics of Amsterdam like Anne Frank or in between work hours like Toni Morrison.
As part of the National Library Week Celebrations, all the way in Chennai, in a room of their own, Maya Sharma Sriram and the students of MOP Vaishnav College for Women discuss writing, wandering into bylanes and alleys of literature. “(Woolf’s) words ring true today.
Writing from the margins is a challenge. For a long time, women were underrepresented to the extent that female writers had to write under a pseudonym,” says Maya at an the Author Speak event, organised by the Pegasus Book Club.
Let’s rewind to the 11th century. The first novel The Tale of The Genji was penned by a woman, Murasaki Shikibu. Maya highlights that the author wrote in Japanese, even as Mandarin ruled the courts, and only high-class communities accessed education.
Since Murasaki’s Japanese epic, a long line of women writers have followed steadily. In India, from Ismat Chughtai’s racy banned Quilt, Sujatha Gidla’s memoir Ants Among Elephants to Amrita Pritam’s poetry, they’ve broken past bounds of existing writing; This year, women writers have been spotlighted; Samantha Harvey’s Orbital bagged the Booker and Han Kang became the first Asian woman to receive a Nobel Prize in Literature.
Among this fray of writers is Maya. “I was seven years old when I discovered Louisa May Alcott and fell in love with Jo March. It was Jo March that made me want to be a writer. The first story I wrote was about five people sitting in a shed and drinking lemonade and wanting to solve mysteries with their dog because in India, if you sit in a shed you are going to bake.” Short stories delving into the lives of women, strong female characters, and interpersonal relationships followed and in 2021, her first novel Bitch Goddess for Dummies was published.
Danger of a single story
Why do we read? What makes us read? Is it to look at the world through other people’s lens or escape reality? Why do we like the books we like? A 2013 study in the Science Journal found that reading improves the ability to understand others’ emotions. “Our imagination gets wider when we read and it builds empathy. We should read because it gives us joy and allows us to understand somebody whose world is so different from ours,” says Maya, adding that reading widely across race, class, and sexual orientation is crucial.
She also warns students against the danger of a single story that may reinforce stereotypes. As Nigerian writer Chimamanda Adichie says, “Show a people as one thing, as only one thing, over and over again, and that is what they become.”
As for aspiring writers, she says, “You have to consciously pick books that come outside your comfort zone, read something you may not normally pick up. Unless you seek out new writers, or translations, you won’t be able to expand your palate.” Drawing from literary expert Pam Allyn, Maya advices: “Reading is like breathing in and writing is like breathing out.”
Maya recommends
There There by Tommy Orange Cobalt Blue by Sachin Kundalkar Salt and Saffron by Kamila Shamsie God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy
Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides The Adivasi Will Not Dance by Hansda Sowvendra Shekhar The Other Black Girl by Zakiya Dalila Harris A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry