About the Poet

Meena Kandasamy is a twenty-one year old activist-writer, poet, and translator based in Chennai, India. Her first collection of poetry, Touch was hailed by renowned poetess and 1984 Nobel Prize nominee Kamala Das who wrote, "Once again after long years of search I came into contact with the power of honest poetry...Revelations come to her frequently and prophecies linger at her lips. Older by nearly half a century, I acknowledge the superiority of her poetic vision..."

Two of her poems, "Mascara" and "My Lover Speaks of Rape" have won first prizes in pan-Indian poetry contests. Her poems have been published widely in India and abroad through journals like The Little Magazine, Cerebration, Indian Horizons, Sweet Magazine, Muse India, Rally, Great Works, Sulekha, Kritya, Indianest, and the Quarterly Literary Review Singapore.