‘Hang Woman’ is new flavour of strong writing: Roop Rekha Verma

For those who have read a lot about women characters being portrayed as sufferers, here is a novel that would make them experience a new face of women.

In this, a woman isn’t showcased as a life giver but rather described as the one who kills. Donning the role of an executioner, the protagonist of KR Meera’s book ‘Hang Woman’ is a different woman altogether.

But what is it that made the author choose such a character? “I was fed up of reading about women characters as helpless women who were subject to all kinds of injustice and sufferings. I wanted to read them as rulers - the ones who enjoy power of complete citizenship,” said KR Meera at the Literary Carnival on Sunday.

Discussing about her book, social activist Roop Rekha Verma said, “The book ‘Hang Woman’ is a new flavour of strong writing that mixes truth with false, history with fiction and emotion with calculation. The book opens up amazing things after every few pages and propels you to think and re-think.” A Malayalam writer, KR Meera’s works are known for their one-liners and metaphors. “Each time you read her book, the characters come as different individuals and you realise there is a different face of the same character. Meera ensures that the reader empathises with her characters in the novels and feels what the protagonist went through,” said Piush Antony, one of the panelists at the discussion.

So, when the one-liners are apt and the metaphors strong, it is a challenge to translate the books. But Ministhy S Nair, author and a bureaucrat who has translated Meera’s work, says: “It was a joy translating her books. But it is said, a translation is a man’s mistress and not a wife…”

Barbarity and sensitivity stand together in the novel.