Fieldwork As A Sex Object
by Meena Kandsamy
AUCK IN STOCK
WGTN IN STOCK
Trade Paperback
Hachette
Brazen
9781846016592
A NEW NOVEL OF INCELS, INFLUENCERS AND AK-47S EVERYONE IS TALKING ABOUT
FROM THE WOMEN'S PRIZE-SHORTLISTED POET AND PROVOCATEUR
'A one-woman, agitprop literary-political movement' INDEPENDENT
I mute the audio before replaying it frame by frame - in dread, in desperation. I watch 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 bio omits a cameo on reality TV and millionaire daddy who runs the show at Delhi High Court).
When a deepfake porno of her 'forwarded many times' by WhatsApp aunties goes viral, the truth finally catches up. On her birthday, Amy is battling a stoning in the digital town square that could cancel even Kim Kardashian.
Her executioners? An unhinged cartel of virgins styling themselves after V for Vendetta - except these keyboard warriors are on a merciless crusade to eradicate desi jezebels and Make India Hindu Again.
A muscular work where the online turns offline turns bloody, this is not a novel you read but a novel that reads you. Fieldwork as a Sex Object asks every one of us how much we're prepared to risk for our principles.
'Courageous and brave' STYLIST
'One of fiction's most fiery and unclassifiable' GUARDIAN
'Her prose is electric, at once brave and poetic and satirical' PARIS REVIEW
A punchy, fragmentary, zeitgeisty novel of internet culture, sexual morality, and political radicalisation in the era of AI. Told through a series of first-person vignettes from the perspective of Amy, the upper-caste, London-based internet communist daughter of a Delhi millionaire, this is a book that feels of its time in that it is deeply urgent and starkly reflective of our globally connected digital culture’s sharp edges.
Amelia, Unity Books wellington
