ABSTRACT
In these extracts from two conversations, 10 years apart, Mahasweta Devi speaks candidly about a range of subjects. She claims a pan-Indian readership, speaking of the people’s response to her receiving the Jnanpith Award. She also rejects the label “woman writer,” insisting that she writes about class, not gender. She speaks of her struggles for justice, declaring that her journalism, activism, personal life, and relationships are inseparable from her role as a writer. In the second conversation, Devi talks about early influences on her work, including the family atmosphere, access to wide reading, the Santiniketan experience when Rabindranath Tagore was alive, and the impact of Kabikankan Mukundaram Chakrabarti’s writings. She speaks of the Bengali writers she considers important, the contribution of women to Bengali literature, and also about her favourite writers from across India. She reminisces about places such as Dhaka, where her family lived, Santiniketan and Tagore’s relevance today, and the crucial place that Kolkata occupies in the history of colonialism in India. Referring to some of her own important works, she declares that she can be understood through her writings.
