August 8, 2009, 6 pm

Prakriti Foundation presents
book launch of The Hour Past Midnight (a novel) by Salma
(Irandaam Jamangalin Kathai translated by Lakshmi Holmstrom)

Venue: SPACES, No.1, Elliots Beach Road, Besant Nagar, Chennai

Distinguished Tamil poet, writer and social activist, Salma dropped out of school at the age of thirteen in keeping with the rigid conventions of her cloistered community. Through her deep interest in literature and voracious reading, she has struggled hard to win fame as a writer and activist. Salma’s first collection of poems, with its bold expression of female subjectivity and the foregrounding of female desire, came as a shock to the male-dominated Tamil literary world. The astonishing success of the book proved to be an enabling moment for women poets in Tamil Nadu. Salma’s novel, ambitious in breadth and scope, provides a searing and insightful portrayal of Muslim society in hinterland Tamil Nadu. The National Book Trust of India nominated Salma to the Frankfurt Book Fair (2006). She was the featured author at the first Norman J. Cutler Conference on South Asian Literatures at the University of Chicago (May 2007).