When I Hit You: Or, a Portrait of the Writer as a Young Wife

SHORTLISTED FOR THE WOMEN'S PRIZE FOR FICTION 2018

LONGLISTED FOR THE DYLAN THOMAS PRIZE 2018

SHORTLISTED FOR THE JHALAK PRIZE 2018

A BEST BOOK OF 2017Financial TimesThe GuardianThe Daily TelegraphThe Observer

"Meena Kandasamy's vivid, sharp and precise writing makes a triumph of When I Hit You."-The Guardian

Set in modern India, the unnamed narrator falls in love with a university professor and agrees to be his wife. Based on the author's own experience of marriage, soon the newly-wed experiences extreme violence at her husband's hands and finds herself socially isolated. Intellectual and physical cruelty is explored. Yet hope keeps her alive. Writing becomes her salvation, a supreme act of defiance and, as the subtitle suggests, the novel is also about the act of writing itself and the way that fiction and stories can help you escape.Though a harrowing story, Kandasamy's writing is also funny, tender, and lyrical. When I Hit You is smart, fierce, and courageous.