AMERICAN-BORN, London-based author Lionel Shriver shot to fame with her seventh novel We Need to Talk about Kevin (2003), a book that probed a troubled mother-son relationship against the backdrop of a school shooting. It won the Orange Prize for Fiction, and after years of relative obscurity, Shriver suddenly became a well-known novelist. Her other fiction has explored a marriage in the world of competitive tennis (Double Fault, 1997), obesity (Big Brother, 2013) and life in a future dystopia (The Mandibles, 2016). Shriver also writes a column for the Spectator and has recently become increasingly known for her provocative views. These include: a rejection of identity politics, concern over the growing cordons on free speech, and a belief that the MeToo movement has gone too far. In 2016, she famously stirred up a controversy at the Brisbane Writers Festival with her keynote address on cultural appropriation, saying political correctness had hamstrung writing, and that novelists were no longer truly free to portray characters outside of their own identities. "[I]n the world of identity politics, fiction writers better be careful. If we do choose to import representatives of protected groups, special rules apply," she said. "Use different races, ethnicities, and minority gender identities, and you are being watched." That set off a series of rejoinders, and Shriver was critiqued for misrepresenting the concept of appropriation; a tetchy response, some said, to bad reviews of her book featuring a Black woman character. Shriver's latest, Property: A Collection (The Borough Press; 336 pages; Rs 1,244) released earlier this year. Shriver was in Mumbai for the Tata Literature Live! festival. Excerpts from a conversation with a provocateur who tolerates no pieties.

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‘MeToo has made women weak and whiny,’ says Lionel Shriver

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