Indian judge rules novelist silenced by nationalist pressure 'be resurrected'

Perumal Murugan, who had stopped writing following death threats and calls for his prosecution, told he should return ‘to what he is best at’ and write

An Indian judge has ruled in favour of a Tamil-language writer, who had withdrawn from the literary scene after facing protests and death threats from members of a far-right Hindu nationalist group over his novel Madhorubhagan, which features a woman trying to get pregnant at a controversial Hindu public fertility ritual.

Announcing his return from self-imposed literary exile on Wednesday, Perumal Murugan said: “I will get up.” The writer had dramatically announced his death as a creative artist last year, and withdrawn all his Tamil writings from bookshops after copies of his books were burned and the town of Tiruchengode, where the novel is set, held a one-day strike to protest the novel’s publication.

Continue reading...