Meena Kandasamy

I mute the audio. I replay the video four times. It is not me. It is my fucking face. Amrita Chaturvedi goes by Amy. Amy identifies as a communist on Twitter (her profile omits a stint on Big Brother and a billionaire daddy running the show at the High Court of Delhi). Then reality hits: a deepfake porno of her forwarded around by WhatsApp aunties goes viral. On her birthday, Amy wakes to a stoning in the digital town square that could cancel the likes of Kim Kardashian. Her executioners? A cartel of unhinged virgins styling themselves after V for Vendetta - except these keyboard warriors are on a ruthless crusade to wipe out desi jezebels and Make India Hindu Again. A muscular, monumental work of internet literature in which the online turns offline turns bloody, Fieldwork as a Sex Object is not a novel you read but a novel that reads you: what are you prepared to risk for what you claim to believe?

SHORTLISTED FOR THE WOMEN'S PRIZE FOR FICTION 2018 LONGLISTED FOR THE DYLAN THOMAS PRIZE 2018 SHORTLISTED FOR THE JHALAK PRIZE 2018 A GUARDIAN BOOK OF THE YEAR A DAILY TELEGRAPH BOOK OF THE YEAR AN OBSERVER BOOK OF THE YEAR A FINANCIAL TIMES BOOK OF THE YEAR 'Courageous and brave and disturbing and will stay with you for a long time' -- Stylist Caught in the hook of love, a young woman marries a dashing university professor. She moves to a rain-washed coastal town to be with him, but behind closed doors she discovers that her perfect husband is a perfect monster. As he sets about battering her into obedience and as her family pressures her to stay in the marriage, she swears to fight back - a resistance that will either kill her or set her free.