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Shaping the World: Women Writers on Themselves
Shaping the World: Women Writers on Themselves addresses these very questions. The array of formidable writers from India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka acclaimed both nationally and internationally share their insecurities and triumphs that occurred on their journeys to becoming writers. Was it easy? The answer is No. Many of them were closet writers, not sharing their writings with the world. Writing was no career, they were told. But they persevered. And they wrote. Because they had to. Because it was their calling.
The writers reveal their inspirations: be it another writer, a personal tragedy, or triumph, a fascination with the English language, or a passion for putting pen to paper and finding wings. Shaping the World: Women Writers on Themselves is an anthology of intimate, honest and brave accounts that will provide the reader with an insight into the realm of writing: its adventurous terrain of highs and lows and how it continues to shape these 24 women and the world we all inhabit.
The writers reveal their inspirations: be it another writer, a personal tragedy, or triumph, a fascination with the English language, or a passion for putting pen to paper and finding wings. Shaping the World: Women Writers on Themselves is an anthology of intimate, honest and brave accounts that will provide the reader with an insight into the realm of writing: its adventurous terrain of highs and lows and how it continues to shape these 24 women and the world we all inhabit.
- GenresNonfiction
272 pages, Paperback
First published May 1, 2014
1 person is currently reading
55 people want to read
About the author
Manju Kapur
19 books214 followersManju Kapur is the author of four novels. Her first, Difficult Daughters, won the Commonwealth Prize for First Novels (Eurasia Section) and was a number one bestseller in India. Her second novel A Married Woman was called 'fluent and witty' in the Independent, while her third, Home, was described as 'glistening with detail and emotional acuity' in the Sunday Times. Her most recent novel, The Immigrant, has been longlisted for the DSC Prize for South Asian Literature. She lives in New Delhi.
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
August 16, 2019
The editor and a contributor of this book is my Alumuni. Also I was given the physical copy of the book. And it is so regretful that it has taken me so long to read it.
Brilliant book to gain insight into the minds of women writers on why and how they shape the world of words, the struggle they have faced and the experience they have gained.
There is a lot of overlap in the background of these authors oweing to the time period and subcontinent they occupy. But they all have dealt with them in their own unique ways. So even though there are many points of thought that I find myself nodding to while some situations are alien to my younger self.
While reading the 23 pieces of self Introspection, one gains the overview of what it means to write as a woman. Despite the equality promised by intellectual work, the chains of domesticity has a fierce hold on a woman's pschye. Whether it is the guilt of not giving enough time to creative urges or the guilt of ignoring domestic responsibilities, the sufferer is the woman.
The very act of making peace with this dilemma, that doesn't even exist for half the sex is an internal growth journey for so many of us. Then there is lack of confidence that plagues us in the external battlefield. Things that are not expected of us silently condemn us. It subconsciously sends the message that we are not good enough, that it is not our place and that only failure awaits us.
In short writing for women is not only shaping the written world but before that our own internal world.
Brilliant book to gain insight into the minds of women writers on why and how they shape the world of words, the struggle they have faced and the experience they have gained.
There is a lot of overlap in the background of these authors oweing to the time period and subcontinent they occupy. But they all have dealt with them in their own unique ways. So even though there are many points of thought that I find myself nodding to while some situations are alien to my younger self.
While reading the 23 pieces of self Introspection, one gains the overview of what it means to write as a woman. Despite the equality promised by intellectual work, the chains of domesticity has a fierce hold on a woman's pschye. Whether it is the guilt of not giving enough time to creative urges or the guilt of ignoring domestic responsibilities, the sufferer is the woman.
The very act of making peace with this dilemma, that doesn't even exist for half the sex is an internal growth journey for so many of us. Then there is lack of confidence that plagues us in the external battlefield. Things that are not expected of us silently condemn us. It subconsciously sends the message that we are not good enough, that it is not our place and that only failure awaits us.
In short writing for women is not only shaping the written world but before that our own internal world.
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August 1, 2014Quite an array of fascinating views into an author's mind, and how the contours of a work of literature we relish are delineated...
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews