Identitti

This book is smart. Like really smart. And such a fun commentary on identity politics and when the ultra-left go too far. It would be a fun read for people who are active on Twitter, as you probably experience the polarized views on the platform, with the heightened parasocial relationships to internet personalities, and the the extreme vitriol they face when they fall. All the while, no one on the internet has an actual in-person relationship to the person.

There’s so much to unpack in this book and Sanyal offers no answers. Like Nivedita, you’re left to your own discernment in figuring out where the line should be drawn. I like it this way though. I feel like the internet allows us to flatten complex problems too easily, when reality is just as messy and difficult to untangle as this book.

I interviewed Mithu Sanyal, the author, and Alta Price, the English translator, for 'We Are All Translators', a weekly newsletter with a video series called 'The WAAT Sessions'. Youtube link below.

Thank you NetGalley for providing an ARC.

"Identitti" is the blogger name of Nivedita, the book's narrator who is a German with Indian/Polish heritage. She is enrolled in a Master's Program for Postcolonial Studies in Düsseldorf, where she falls under the spell of celebrity professor Saraswati, a public intellectual with a cult-like following - until Nivedita's Anglo-Indian cousin Priti unwillingly helps to uncover that Saraswati is, in fact, NOT Indian, as she has claimed, but a white German. Now the ground shifts for Nivedita: If the woman who has helped her feel real and valid is a scam, what does it mean for her? Is "transracial identity" a thing? What would intellectuals like Spivak, Baldwin, and hooks say? And of course, a worldwide scandal ensues about the professor for Postcolonial Studies who claimed to be a PoC.

This was one of my most anticipated reads and it was not disappointing

German Indian student Nivedita is utterly thrown when, shortly after praising her professor Saraswati, it’s leaked that the professor is not actually Indian. Unveiling of the truth and its fallout for Nivedita both emotionally and professionally (she has a whole online identity, known as Identitti, she uses to dissect race, gender, identity etc. as a biracial person in Germany).

Saraswati's real identity is revealed as Sarah Vera, a white German woman, who grew up with a brother adopted from India by her parents. The two have an acrimonious relationship, which is revealed to Nivedita when she goes to Sarah Vera demanding answers.

Sarah Vera remains unrepentant, and Nivedita cannot, despite numerous attempts, get “Saraswati” to see how harmful her playing at being Indian is, how it undermined strides BIPoC may have made in Germany, and how utterly performative her Indianness is. And though hard won, requiring multiple surgeries, "Saraswati" is still nothing more than a costume for someone who occupies a much more comfortable spot in society than Nivedita, or her BIPoC peers do.

Author Mithu Sanyal deals with the many messy aspects making up race and identity. "Identitti" is a partially a novel, partially an extended debate and analysis of the complexities inherent to the construct of race, and how that plays into one's identity, and a culture's values. Sanyal has real people contribute tweets and the like to this novel, as if they were actually responding to the revelations about "Saraswati", giving the book an extra layer of veracity.

Satires can be hit or miss for me. This book was fascinating, sometimes an annoying read because of the intransigent or vacillating characters, and infuriating when the white professor refused to acknowledge how her lies had hurt people. The book was also funny at times, and cringey at others.

Did I like this? Yes, I think so, but it's also a difficult book to get through, as there are no answers or real resolutions at the end.

Thank you to Netgalley and to Astra Publishing House for this ARC in exchange for my review.