Poet, and president of Kerala Sahitya Academi K. Satchidanandan said that women writers are yet to get a place for themselves in literature. Opening the one-day workshop for women writers, titled ‘Sthree, Bhasha, Ezhuthu, Arangu’, organised by the Academi, in association with Darsanam Samskarika Vedi at the Gender Park campus here on Sunday, he said that workshops like these were part of the search for women’s own place not just in literature, but workplace, home and society.
“Women writers are still bound by the language created by men, in which they have to narrate their experiences,” he said, calling for efforts to change the popular understanding that women belonged to private spaces. He said that the trial of feminist writers and critics were to encourage novel reading styles giving due consideration to Indian realities.
Academi Secretary C.P. Aboobakker presided over the event. Darsanam Secretary M.A. Johnson and president T.K. Sunil Kumar were present.
Later Latha Lakshmi spoke on ‘Women and society in literature’ while R. Rajasree spoke on ‘Do women have a language?’. Roshni Swapna spoke on ‘Women oriented poetry in Malayalam’ while Sajitha Madthathil spoke on ‘Women on the stage’. More than 100 women from different parts of the State, selected based on their interest in literature, took part in the workshop.
