Eating Wasps by Anita Nair

2018

Eating Wasps
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Synopsis Of Eating Wasps

In a small town by the river Nila, a thirty-five-year-old writer kills herself. No one knows why.

Fifty-two years later, an antique cupboard in a private resort opens to reveal a frightened child. And the mystery begins to unravel.

From the best-selling author of Ladies Coupe comes an unusual novel about the intensity – and consequences – of desire.

“Anita Nair is a fine writer with a great sense of character… and an eye for telling details. She can move from tender compassion to sensuality to raging hatred… A compelling teller of stories.”

– Hindu Literary Supplement

Exclusive Excerpt

from Anita Nair’s new novel Eating Wasps

Praise for Eating Wasps

The Sunday Express

In her latest offering, Eating Wasps, Nair, however, returns to the terrain that her 2001 novel, Ladies Coupé, had mapped with such sensitivity and attention: the sisterhood…. But naturally, Eating Wasps is the work of an artist who has diligently spent the last decade-and-a-half since it was published in the workshop, and it bears witness to how Nair’s writing has evolved. To begin a novel with the first-person account of a dead protagonist is a memorable move that, in the hands of a lesser writer, could go awfully wrong. But in Nair’s deft construction, Sreelakshmi, a young award-winning novelist who takes the Malayalam academy by storm through her honest writing about womanhood and sensual love, quickly becomes the novel’s living, breathing heart. While several chapters are quite dark, on the whole the sombre note is countermanded by the breezy effortlessness of Nair’s writing… The perfect book to read as winter begins to leave, Eating Wasps is a feminist novel that, in the season of #MeToo, ultimately reminds us that however hard the contours of the individual story of pain, persecution or trauma might be, once it is out there, articulated and heard, in that space between the listener and the teller, the subject — and, by extension, the reader — can begin to heal.

The Sunday Express

Outlook India

Set in Kerala, the stories of Nair’s heroines span multiple castes, classes and religions as if to underscore the point that women of all hues and from all backgrounds are confronted with problems which are more or less universal.As the book’s descriptor argues: “No one chooses to eat a wasp. But what if it were to fly into your mouth? Would you let it sting your tongue or bite down on it? Would you spit or swallow? Would you crumple or fight? The lives of women everywhere is about such decisions and the consequences thereof.”The novel is set in contemporary times and is replete with references to social technology and its mediums Tinder, Instagram, etc., and the role they play in our lives today. On the whole, it is yet another rich literary discourse on Indian feminism by Nair.

Outlook India

First Post

Nair turns her gaze, in this new work, towards those who are most in need of kindness. Even when they do not see themselves through kind eyes. She is gentle on her women, and there’s 10 of them in this book. Each one maneuvering life and its challenges in earnest. There’s the other woman, the child, the abused, the abusive, the revenge-taker, the hider, the seeker, the one walking away with her head high, the one embracing life, the one rejecting it… Nair doesn’t sit on a high horse and tell you which ones to like and which ones to hate. There are no easy heroines and vamps. It is also a story of strangers, women, extending kindnesses towards each other. Which is what, despite the death in the first sentence, and the palpable presence of violence through the book (there’s child abuse, acid attack, stalking, cyber-bullying and more), makes it so soulful, stirring up a warm feeling.

First Post

Times of India

There is only a handful of Indian writers who fully understand the characters they write. Anita Nair is one such author who becomes one with the women in her books and puts up a fierce and endless fight till the end for them to find a voice. Nair’s brilliance lies in the fact that she doesn’t merely portray these women as victims. They are flawed human beings with flesh and bones — and survivors. An evocative and raw story coupled with Nair’s impeccable prose make for an intensely intriguing read.

The Times of India

The Week

Anita Nair is probably India’s most popular and prolific writer. She spins stories with dazzling speed and intensity. Eating Wasps is vintage Nair, who excels in writing passionately and sensitively about women. Nair has spent her career using the veil of fiction to explore their inner worlds. Thus, she dabbles in subjects like love and its complexity, duty, family, jealousy, desire, marriage, motherhood and the longing for freedom…. Her heroines, as in her previous books, are real, and not air-brushed or cookie-cutter. They are survivors, strong but flawed.The book is dark, disturbing in parts, and contemporary. Sreelakshmi’s story of love and desire that drove her to madness serves as a reminder of how, even today, women bear the shame of expressing desire. But it is heartbreak that Nair excels at. She writes about it evocatively. Sreelakshmi is difficult to get out of your mind. And so is her story.

The Week

The Scroll

While it doesn’t follow an overtly feminist agenda, it captures the lives of women in a satisfying and beautiful way. You can hold it up and be happy that there is still literature out there that easily passes the Bechdel Test. And also know that it doesn’t exist just to pass the Bechdel test… At the level of craft too, Nair excels at creating different portraits. There are multiple women, some who only appear for one chapter, and some who become recurring supporting characters in the story of Sreelakshmi and Urvashi. She blends caste, class, and religion with a surprising amount of ease… Perhaps a book like this, which gives an unvarnished glimpse into the lives we lead, will force us to listen, to be kinder, and to treat ourselves better. Highly readable and visceral, the novel reminds you that you are not alone, and that your feelings are not invalid. Eating Wasps is a celebration of women unlike any other. It doesn’t have a politically charged agenda, but it calms you in the wake of all the fear and rage. Much of the novel is ultimately sad, even if it is determined not to be. It’s a simply told story of ordinary characters telling tales you’ve probably been reading all over the newspapers for a long time now. But Eating Wasps is the kind of book that makes you emerge as the winner. You read it, you breathe, and you relax. You can treat it like comfort food, or as your first glimpse into the struggles of women. Eating Wasps can mould itself to be your book. A friend who reminds you that there is still hope and that our voices matter.

The Scroll

The Hindu Literary Review

A writer who tells stories from both male and female perspectives, there can be no pigeon-holing her as a feminist writer. Nair has reiterated that women should be allowed to live their lives according to their will without any apology, without being made to feel inferior. This strand runs through all her novels, including her latest. Intriguingly titled Eating Wasps, the novel recounts the stories of not one but 10 women who have had to deal with obstacles that threaten their existence….Eating Wasps is a novel about redemption and of women with the courage to write their own narratives without apology.

The Hindu Literary Review

Hindustan Times

‘Clear’, ‘concise’ and ‘insightful’ are perfect descriptors of Anita Nair’s latest novel, Eating Wasps. The book starts with 30-year-old Sreelakshmi’s suicide on a “Monday. A working day.” A Sahtiya Akademi winner, she is still considered damaged goods by the people in her vicinity because she is unmarried. After her cremation, an ex-lover Markose recovers her index finger from the funeral pyre, and thus Sreelakshmi is carried through the stories of several women who are fighting their own battles with society’s expectations and their own…. She draws pictures of flawed human beings. This is what makes Eating Wasps so compelling. It doesn’t just deal with the issues faced by women in a general sense, but presents them in detail…. Nair’s poetic prose set alongside unvarnished truths of the everyday lives of women makes Eating Wasps a satisfying and disturbing read all at once.

Hindustan Times

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In Conversation with Anita Nair