ABSTRACT
Kamala Surayya (1934–2009), known by her pen name Kamala Das, was a Malayalam poet, cherished in Kerala for her poetry, short stories, and her autobiography, which broke taboos on explicitness regarding female sexuality. She was also highly influential on the rise of Indian anglophone poetry. Her autobiography, written starting in 1970, was originally published serially in Malayalam under the title Ente Katha in 1972, and then later in English as My Story. The memoir elicited vociferous reactions both of admiration and condemnation. It is, nevertheless, advertised as the best-selling woman’s autobiography in India. This chapter relooks at those aspects of the book that were regarded as scandalous and uncover the ways that they strengthen our belief that autobiographies transubstantiate the flesh into word.
