Mithu Sanyal is a writer and contemporary commentator. After her non-fiction books “Rape – Aspects of a Crime” and “Vulva – Revealing the Invisible Sex”, her debut novel “Identitti” was published in 2021. Recently she and others called for a “parliamentary poet”.
SZ: What are you reading right now?
Mithu Sanyal: Always too many books at the same time. They lie in my bed and lovingly press grooves into my skin at night. Seen from here, the next three are: “Time Travel, A History” by James GleickHeinrich Böll/Sharon Dodua Otoo “Collected Silence”, “Enid Blyton, The Biography” by Barbara Stoney – and they are all great.
What was the last really good book you read?
Deepa Anappara’s The Bhoot Bazaar Detectives is so goodthat I just reread it. This is one of those novels that I found myself reading. I thought: Oh, these are people like you and me. By “that” I meant the Indian slum children who are looking for their kidnapped friends in the novel. Anappara restores humanity to these children. This is how literature should be: warm, magical and eye-opening.
Which book should be banned?
Harry Rowohlt once said he wasn’t the Terminator, he was more the Tolerator (or something like that). I think I’m Harry Rowohlt. I can’t imagine banning a book. But one novel I really hate is Flaubert’s Madame Bovary. Because Flaubert feels so superior to his main character and lets that hang out in every sentence.
What book do you hate but love the author?
I find Sibylle Berg so great, but I have a problem with her literature because she has this cold view of the world. She has every right to do that, of course, but I can’t read it.
Can a badly written book still be a good book? Or a well-written failed anyway?
I am currently writing an essay on Enid Blyton, which was so blatantly racist and sexist and oh yeah, classist for a start, and yet it’s the reason I’m a writer. More on this in the forthcoming Hanser anthology “Cancel. A Necessary Controversy”.
Which book explains the whole world best for you?
“Braided Sweet Grass” by Robin Wall Kimmerer. Kimmerer is a professor of environmental ecology and a First Nation American and combines these two scientific traditions in the most productive way. When we talk about environmental protection, it always has the undertone: Humans are the parasites of the planet and it would be better if we died out as quickly as possible. Kimmerer, on the other hand, shows that “nature” not only gives us something, but that we have a lot to give back if we only know how – and indeed how intimately we are – connected to the entire living world.
Who would be your first candidate as a Bundestag poet?
Jacinta Nandi. But also Deniz Utlu, Ulrike Herrmann, Margarita Tsomou, Riem Spielhaus, Senthuran Varatharajah and so many more. Fortunately, this is intended as a rotating office, so we can (d) have many different artistic perspectives on politics. I still think that’s a great idea. And no, that won’t save the world. But it would make her a little prettier.
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