One Part Woman (pronounced [mɑːd̪oɾʉbɑːgən]) is a Tamil novel written by Indian writer Perumal Murugan titled "Mathorupagan" (மாதொருபாகன்).
[3] Set during the colonial era in the Southern state of Tamil Nadu in India, it deals with the social stigma that a married couple faces due to their childlessness, and the lengths they go to conceive.
As a last resort, their families put forward the suggestion that Ponna go to the chariot festival of the androgynous god Ardhanarishvara, where on the 18th day, societal taboo relating to extramarital sex is relaxed and consenting men and women may sleep together.
[12] Ponna is pressurized to conceive to improve her husband's social standing and to stop people from bringing up the lack of inheritance for her family's property.
[11] Murugan has pointed out that marriage in India "is not a democratic institution [...] The man always has and continues to have a wider space in which to function, [while] the woman is constantly constrained."
The novel also describes how patriarchy leads to the oppression of female sexuality, by viewing it solely as means to motherhood and the benefit of her husband and progeny alone.
Meena Kandasamy of The Guardian praised Murugan's "unsurpassed ability to capture Tamil speech, [which] lays bare the complex organism of the society he adeptly portrays" as well as Vasudevan's translation for "preserving the mood of the original".
[15] The New Yorker called it "a subtly subversive novel [that] considers the constraints of tradition [...] In simple yet lyrical prose, Murugan shows how their standing in the world depends on their offspring.
"[16] Lucy Scholes of The National summed it up as a "moving, quietly magnificent portrait of a tender, loving marriage that’s buckling under the impossible strain of meddling busybodies and the weight of conventional societal expectations."
[20] It was also announced as the Sahitya Akademi Translation Prize awardee in 2018, but the High Court of Madras passed a stay order on it after agitators filed a plea against it.
[21] In the wake of these events, Sahitya Akademi jury member Githa Hariharan filed a counter-affidavit contending that issues within the purview of litterateurs could not be subjected to judicial review.
[26] Although the protests were widely reported to have been encouraged by the right-wing Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh,[27][28][4] it issued an official statement denying any involvement in the matter.
As protests continued, he attended a peace meeting presided over by local administrators, where he was forced to render an unconditional apology and agreed to withdraw the book itself.
[30][25][31] In the aftermath of these events, he posted what has been called a "literary suicide" note on his Facebook page, withdrawing all his written work and declaring a self-imposed end to his career as a writer.