Mustansir Dalvi reviews Speak, Woman! by Smita Agarwal in The Wire.

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In Speak, Woman!, author Smita Agarwal speaks of a woman’s condition, and exhorts others to do so too. She knows that there is little recourse to equity, even solidarity, from the state, its institutions, its cultural constructs, or from those of the opposite persuasion.

So she raises her voice in this asymmetrical world. “They are done with decency,” she says, speaking on behalf of those like herself in her poem, ‘Self Goal’. Through her courageous words, she chargesheets the patriarchy while simultaneously exploring herself. Both are undertaken with a candour that makes this book of poems so riveting.

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Read the complete review here. https://thewire.in/books/smita-agarwal-speak-woman-review

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PS: As a publisher, we are especially thankful to Mr Dalvi for pointing out the design mistakes. We agree with Mr Dalvi that "A book of poems is a peculiar animal", and we tried our best to do justice to the book, as we do with all our titles. Now we realise that the design may not have worked for this particular title, and we thank Mr Dalvi for letting us know. We will try to bring out a second edition as a "slightly larger-sized book, with a fine cover and clear, uncluttered pages of verse".