Exquisite Cadavers

October 26, 2020
In Kandasamy’s bold, inventive latest (after When I Hit You), a young couple struggles with the pressures of domestic life and Islamophobia in London. Karim, a film student from Tunisia, is disappointed by his British professors, who would rather he make a stereotypical “Arabian” film than a British one. In contrast, Maya, who works at a newspaper, is described as the “epitome of Britishness who never had to face the question: But where are you really from?” With Karim, she becomes attuned to the bias of “everyone’s inner Orientalist” and their loaded questions. Kandasamy renders the couple’s experience and perceptions through an effective experiment: the text is divided into two columns on each page, with Maya and Karim’s story offset by a parallel narrative in the margins consisting of Kandasamy’s notes on her own life and her ideas about the characters, and details of violence against women in her native India. As Karim rushes back to Tunis after his brother is falsely arrested and possibly killed, Maya considers joining Karim, asking herself, “What’s the worst that could happen?” It’s a chilling question in the context of Kandasamy’s commentary on violence and political displacement. This is both an excellent exercise in form and a deeply evocative love story.