The Red Woman by Laksmisree Banerjee

The Red Woman

Laksmisree Banerjee
Black Eagle Books [Dublin. USA. India]
PP 108, Year 2025

ISBN 978- 1- 64560- 637- 6
PRICE ₹ 280

---Reviewed by Santosh Bakaya

There is no denying the fact that Laksmisree Banerjee is an important literary voice in the present literary scene. I have read many of her books and have found the impassioned intensity of her writing almost palpable, impacting the reader powerfully.

In the pages of this new book, The Red Woman, published by Black Eagle Books, [Dublin, the USA, India], Patriarchy, with all its cruel claws, is in the dock!

Laksmisree Banerjee

 In her foreword, Bashabi Fraser says that the ‘vigilant third eye’ is forever awake in Laksmisree’s poetry, as she walks with the prostitute, remembers the child widow, the smothered silence, the shunned, isolated or lonely woman…”

Her poems cannot be stifled, but will bring hope to the hopeless, revitalizing and resurrecting the women languishing in the margins of society. 

With remarkable panache, Laksmisree has woven together myriad female experiences in a Male-dominated society, symbolized by the powerful Red Woman, embodying pain, defiance, and the searing fire of rebellion.  As she says in her interview with Rachna Singh, [Editor, The Wise Owl magazine], she has presented and poeticized 'The Red Woman in all her entirety."    

She has a voice that excels at singing dulcet songs, but here her poetic voice reaches a crescendo of indignation at the centennial patriarchal mindset.

Santosh Bakaya

 With an edifying eloquence, she expresses empathy with the marginalized, the downtrodden, the silent sufferers, the child brides, the young widows, the victims of prejudice, and the invisibles. And, also, the new bride,' in closeted freedom of female glory', all dressed up in heavy finery, waiting for the doors to open, 
' lattices removed,
for guests to enter, inspect, and laud
the newest toy in her in-laws' home."   

Dedicated "to all such Abhayas, Nirbhayas, and fearless women of the world, brutally treated  daily, killed and raped by the ageless guillotine of patriarchy", the book, in its 108 pages, attacks the sinister minds responsible for the' female body and soul strewn in gory shards.'

" lacerated womanhood, the searing agony of a manacled womanhood,"

In the Author's Note, she says that, “the predominance of the Red Colour, its efficacy and usage is interwoven in my poetic fabric."
 ”Fire and the colour red are powerful symbols that burn in her poems and remain intensely personal, while also connecting with the reader because of the universality and the immediacy of the issues raised,"  says Debjani Chatterjee in her blurb. 

The longest poem in the book is The Red Woman, pp 1- 5 - the woman who is lost in the meandering paths of Songachi. 

She exclaims,  

"You are the whore,
 not I 
 You have sold your soul
 not I 
You have revelled in perfidy
 not I 

You have traded in lust 

not I”. 

 The back page blurbs speak highly of her poetic talent. 
Candice Louisa Daquin, [USA], calls the book 'a potent tour de force through womanhood, culminating in a meticulous, polemic rebellion.

K. Satchidanandan says that she has consistently pursued the "painful secrets of the human condition."

 The poem Timeless Sin p 30, hits hard at the regressive ritual of locking up a woman for her crime of bleeding for 'four days a month'.

"My grandmother 

 was chained in darkness in the cowshed,
Barred from sunlight four days a month
It was a crime for her to bleed
 Like it was for her to be a girl-"

After coming out, she would be purified with cow dung and chilly Ganga water
"Strangling her every month 

with pneumonia."

Unborn Kill, p 39 is another hard-hitting poem on female infanticide.
"I felt my throbs
deep within
 the frothy warmth of
 my mother's insides...

 I was she
a teardrop on the serrated edge

 of being,
a dew on her hidden, clement leaf,
soon to be sucked out by
the boiling seas, the hot winds
 of prejudice.”   

In 'Renaissance after her Martyrdom', p 107

"No way will this upheaval ever stop
till a new awakened, sun rises in tearful blossom..." 

No longer can we afford to remain complacent or indifferent; we need to raise our collective voices against these atrocities, against bruised womanhood, against all societal stereotypes,

'Till fists are ready to combat subjugation

...

patriarchy asphyxiated with blasts of justice:

In an interview with Rachna Singh, the editor of The Wise Owl magazine, Laksmisree Banerjee   says that the book accentuates 

'' the multifacetedness of women's experiences throughout the world."   
She emphasizes that the "resonant image of this book would be a blood-smeared woman with an unfurled flag in one hand and a tight fist in the other, proclaiming a crying rebellion for a better world of equality and humanity."

This collection throws ample light on the brutal fact that women continue to battle the evils of patriarchy, excruciating humiliation, and isolation.
Some, like Maya Angelou's caged bird, alas, have forgotten to sing.   
Like Laksmisree, I am also robustly convinced of the power of poetry to bring about positive change. And this, I am sure, is one such book which will take society by the scruff of its collar, and shake it out of its complacency.
Let me add an important point here.   
Despite the bludgeoning and battering of women in a toxic patriarchal society, Laxmisree reiterates that we continue to witness the grit and gumption of such women to rise above the trials and tribulations of life, and We Rise with Her.P 107

"No, we cannot stop till the seeds flower again
till the verdure of love sprouts in redressal 

Till the womb stops bleeding in such a demoniac carnage
..............................
We now await appeasement of a new daybreak."

 Two chilling poems, Fire of a New Woman, PP 25, and SCARS: Burnt Woman, based on a real-life, personal Fire Tragedy, sent chills up my spine:
In the concluding lines, of Fire of a new Woman, I could read the message of resilience and fortitude. Out of the ashes of the fire, a new Woman was born.

   “You found your new sangfroid
I found the darkness of fire 
the light of knowledge."

In [SCARS: Burnt Woman pp 23 -24] Despite ‘ice cold abandonment…”
 “my tears hardened

Into granite chips…and the darkness of fire
taught her ‘the lessons of love and life’.

Bravo for writing such an important book- A book which deserves a permanent place in the book shelves of all university and college libraries.

---

Setu, November 2025