Description
This is a book of reflective and contesting voices — voices heard and unheard, voices stifled and allowed to speak, voices that breed contrasts. Drawing a semblance to Medusa from Greek mythology, this book looks into mundane characters who are either left to their isolated and reflective peregrination, or else, ostracised. The poems in Medusa Says it All portray gender hierarchy, barrenness and fertility, journey motifs, and the strength of unheard voices.
Sreetanwi’s adept utilisation of powerful imagery permeates the entirety of the book. The convergence of diverse cultures within her poetry is a spectacle to behold, and the intricately woven tapestry of myths and allegorical concepts therein constitutes a formidable intellectual and artistic amalgamation. — Semeen Ali
Medusa Says it All is a polyphonic assortment of verses where ancient myths keep recurring with current references to justice, injustice and womanhood. Sreetanwi Chakraborty’s poems move with time, back and forth, following its coherence and incomprehension. The collection, replete with surreal motifs, proposes to seek out an ‘exit route to the heaven’ at a time when society has turned into a ‘backless blouse which carries the burden of untold stories.’ — Sekhar Banerjee
Sreetanwi Chakraborty is an Assistant Professor at Amity Institute of English Studies and Research, Amity University, Kolkata. She is also the chief editor of a bilingual biannual journal Litinfinite, with multiple indexing of international repute and archived in 240 global libraries. Apart from her research papers published in Scopus, Web of Science and UGC Care journals. Her works have also been published in Ekdin, Uttarer Saradin, Setumag, Dainik Gati, The Darjeeling Chronicle, Darjeeling Times, POL, The Dhaka Review, The Dhaka Tribune, Outlook India, The Times of India, The Daily Bhorer Alo (Bangladesh), Muse India, Kochi Post, Kavya Bharati, Asian Cha, Poetry Potion (SA), Poetry Conclave, and many more. She has read her poems on invitation by the Sahitya Akademi, the WB Kabita Academy, Samyukta Poetry and acted as a poet and session moderator at the Chandrabhaga Poetry Festival. Her book The Sleeping Beauty Wakes Up: A Feminist Interpretation of Fairy Tales received the ‘Rising Star’ non-fiction award in the New Town Book Fair in 2019. She has two sole poetry books and is an invited poet to 18 anthologies. Her recent work includes Rhododendrons, a novella, poems in the anthology, Of Dry Tongues and Brave Hearts (Red River) and a translated short story in an anthology of Kazi Nazrul Islam’s short stories, a project from Kazi Nazrul University (Orient Blackswan). One of her paintings has been selected by Sahitya Akademi as the cover design for Prachi journal in 2023.