Authorial Lives and Deaths: Revisiting Perumal Murugan’s Literary Death and Afterlives
-
Ahmed Shabin
Abstract
Tamil writer Perumal Murugan announced his authorial death on Facebook in January 2015. The events that led to this moment and what followed highlight the contentious relationship between authorship and censorship. This paper positions itself within the field of literary authorship studies. While mid-twentieth-century French theory had engaged with notions of authorial death and author-as-victim, witnessing Murugan’s actions following the call for a social boycott of his novel, One Part Woman, in 2014, brought back to life theory that had long been buried. Explaining his experiences in light of Roland Barthes’s and Michel Foucault’s treatises on authorship, this paper reads Murugan’s literary suicide and writings as a resurrection that creatively challenges attempts to shun his critical fiction. His example highlights how a socio-political environment that is suspicious of plurality and democracy renders the relations among the author, the reader, the text, and the context as unstable.
References
Barthes, R. 1977. “The Death of the Author.” In Image-Music-Text, 142–8. Trans. S. Heath. London: Fontana.Suche in Google Scholar
Bedigan, M. 2022. “Salman Rushdie Attack Suspect Says He Only Read Two Pages of Satanic Verses.” Evening Standard, August 18. https://www.standard.co.uk/news/world/salman-rushdie-attack-suspect-hadi-matar-two-pages-satanic-verses-b1019304.html (accessed August 28, 2022).Suche in Google Scholar
Bhatia, G. 2016. “The Fault in Our Speech.” The Hindu. https://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-opinion/The-fault-in-our-speech/article14475594.ece (accessed June 02, 2022).Suche in Google Scholar
Burke, J. 2015. “Indian Author Gives Up Writing after Hindu Nationalist Protests.” The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/jan/15/indian-author-perumal-murugan-hindu-protests (accessed 01 August 1, 2023).Suche in Google Scholar
Foucault, M. 1998. “What Is an Author?” In Aesthetics, Method, and Epistemology, 205–22, edited by J. D. Faubion. Trans. R. Hurley et al. New York: New Press.Suche in Google Scholar
Geetha, V. 2015. “Notes on a Literary Death.” EPW 50 (3). https://www.epw.in/journal/2015/3/web-exclusives/notes-literary-death.html (accessed April 20, 2022).Suche in Google Scholar
Janardhanan, A. 2015. “The Sunday Story: Where the Writer Died.” The Indian Express, January 25. https://indianexpress.com/article/india/india-others/the-sunday-story-where-the-writer-died/ (accessed January 25, 2022).Suche in Google Scholar
Kanagasabapathi, P. 2015. “Perumal Murugan: Escape the Questions, Skip to Outrage.” Swarajya, February 05. https://swarajyamag.com/culture/perumal-murugan-escape-the-questions-skip-to-outrage (accessed February 06, 2022).Suche in Google Scholar
Kannabiran, K. 2015. “Storytelling in the Time of Hate: Deciphering Law(s) through Literature.” Economic and Political Weekly 50 (20): 76–83.Suche in Google Scholar
Karthikeyan, D. 2017. “Perumal Murugan on Row Over His Book One Part Woman: ‘I Am Not the Controversy, I Am the Writer’.” FirstPost. May 23. https://www.firstpost.com/living/perumal-murugan-on-row-over-his-book-one-part-woman-i-am-not-the-controversy-i-am-the-writer-3472160.html (accessed March 22, 2022).Suche in Google Scholar
Kolappan, B., and S. P. Saravanan. 2014. “BJP, RSS Seek Ban on Tamil Novel, Arrest of Author.” The Hindu. December 27. https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/tamil-nadu/bjp-rss-seek-ban-on-tamil-novel-arrest-of-author/article6729393.ece (accessed April 23, 2022).Suche in Google Scholar
Latham, S. 2019. “Industrialized Print: Modernism and Authorship.” In The Cambridge Handbook of Literary Authorship, edited by I. Berensmeyer, G. Buelens, and M. Demoor, pp. 165–82. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.10.1017/9781316717516.011Suche in Google Scholar
Maheswari, M. 2019. Art Attacks: Violence and Offence-Taking in India. New Delhi: Oxford University Press.10.1093/oso/9780199488841.001.0001Suche in Google Scholar
McConigley, N. 2015. “Perumal Murugan, A Literary Suicide.” PEN America. https://pen.org/perumal-murugan-a-literary-suicide/ (accessed January 02, 2022).Suche in Google Scholar
Murugan, P. 2010. Madhorubhagan. Chennai: Kalachuvadu Publications.Suche in Google Scholar
Murugan, P. 2012. Saathiyum Nanum. Chennai: Kalachuvadu Publications.Suche in Google Scholar
Murugan, P. 2013. One Part Woman. Trans. Aniruddhan Vasudevan. New Delhi: Penguin Books.Suche in Google Scholar
Murugan, P. 2015. “Perumal Murugan the Writer Is Dead.” Facebook, January 13. https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100012764135401 (accessed January 05, 2022).Suche in Google Scholar
Murugan, P., and T. C. S. Lakshmi. 2017. Black Coffee in a Coconut Shell: Caste as Lived Experience. New Delhi: SAGE Yoda Press.Suche in Google Scholar
Murugan, P. 2017. Songs of a Coward: Poems of Exile. Trans. A. Vasudevan. New Delhi: Penguin Books.Suche in Google Scholar
Murugan, P. 2018a. A Lonely Harvest. Trans. Aniruddhan Vasudevan. New Delhi: Penguin Books.Suche in Google Scholar
Murugan, P. 2018b. Poonachi: Or the Story of a Black Goat. Trans. Kalyan Raman. New Delhi: Context.Suche in Google Scholar
Murugan, P. 2018c. Trial by Silence. Trans. Aniruddhan Vasudevan. New Delhi: Penguin Books.Suche in Google Scholar
Murugan, P. 2018d. “Perumal Murugan’s Letter to S. Hareesh: And it Will Subside.” The Hindu, July 28. https://www.thehindu.com/opinion/op-ed/and-it-will-subside/article24534808.ece?homepage=true (accessed March 12, 2022).Suche in Google Scholar
Paulraj, S. 2018. “Single Issue, Multitude Suffering-Trauma and Pain – Reference to Perumal Murugan’s One Part Woman.” Pune Research World 2 (2): 1–12. http://puneresearch.com/media/data/issues/59340519f217b.pdf (accessed March 14, 2022).Suche in Google Scholar
Ramachandran, R. 2018. “Kerala Gets its Own Perumal Murugan, Thanks (Again) to the Sangh Parivar.” The Wire, 22 July. https://thewire.in/books/kerala-author-s-harish-withdraws-book-due-to-sang-parivar-threat (accessed May 08, 2022).Suche in Google Scholar
Ramanujan, A. K. 2006. “Three Hundred Ramayanas: Five Examples and Three Thoughts on Translation.” In The Collected Essays of A. K. Ramanujan, 134, edited by V. Dharwadker. New Delhi: Oxford University Press.Suche in Google Scholar
Ross, T. 2019. “Censorship.” In The Cambridge Handbook of Literary Authorship, edited by I. Berensmeyer, G. Buelens and M. Demoor, pp. 400–14. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.10.1017/9781316717516.025Suche in Google Scholar
Rushdie, S. 1988. Satanic Verses. London: Viking Penguin.Suche in Google Scholar
S. Tamilselvan vs The Government of Tamil Nadu. 2015. Madras High Court, February 24. https://www.thehinducentre.com/multimedia/archive/02922/Perumal_Murugan_Ju_2922046a.pdf (accessed January 12, 2022).Suche in Google Scholar
Saravanan, S. P. 2015. “Hounded by Caste Outfits.” The Hindu, January 14. https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/tamil-nadu/hounded-by-caste-outfits/article6787062.ece (accessed January 14, 2015).Suche in Google Scholar
Sengupta, S. 2018. “I Have Started Resorting to a Certain Level of Self-Censorship Now… in Today’s India Judiciary is Our Only Hope.” Times of India. https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/blogs/the-interviews-blog/i-have-started-resorting-to-a-certain-level-of-self-censorship-now-in-todays-india-judiciary-is-our-only-hope/?source=app&frmapp=yes (accessed February 21, 2022).Suche in Google Scholar
Stougaard-Nielsen, J. 2019. “The Author in Literary Theory and Theories of Literature.” In The Cambridge Handbook of Literary Authorship, edited by I. Berensmeyer, G. Buelens, and M. Demoor, pp. 270–87. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.10.1017/9781316717516.017Suche in Google Scholar
Tharu, S., and K. Lalita, eds. 1993. Women’s Writing in India Volume 1: 600 B.C to the Early Twentieth Century. New York: Feminist Press.Suche in Google Scholar
Thiyagarajan, N. 2021. “Inevitable Lives: Connecting Animals, Caste, Gender, and the Environment in Perumal Murugan’s the Story of a Goat.” South Asian Review 42 (4): 356–71. https://doi.org/10.1080/02759527.2021.1905483.Suche in Google Scholar
© 2023 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston
Artikel in diesem Heft
- Frontmatter
- Editorial
- Editorial
- Articles
- ZAA at 70
- Mary Ashraf and the “Research Group on Working Class Literature”: The Programmatic Pursuit of a New Research Field in the GDR Anglistik
- “To this Silent Paper I May Confess it”: Diary Writing and Trauma in The Tenant of Wildfell Hall
- Wotan’s Biopunk: The Grim(m) German God and His English Bloodsport in Sarban’s The Sound of His Horn
- Modes of Social Closure in Morten Tyldum’s Film The Imitation Game
- Authorial Lives and Deaths: Revisiting Perumal Murugan’s Literary Death and Afterlives
Artikel in diesem Heft
- Frontmatter
- Editorial
- Editorial
- Articles
- ZAA at 70
- Mary Ashraf and the “Research Group on Working Class Literature”: The Programmatic Pursuit of a New Research Field in the GDR Anglistik
- “To this Silent Paper I May Confess it”: Diary Writing and Trauma in The Tenant of Wildfell Hall
- Wotan’s Biopunk: The Grim(m) German God and His English Bloodsport in Sarban’s The Sound of His Horn
- Modes of Social Closure in Morten Tyldum’s Film The Imitation Game
- Authorial Lives and Deaths: Revisiting Perumal Murugan’s Literary Death and Afterlives
