Dayanita Singh: Myself Mona Ahmed

Singh’s acclaimed 2001 collaborative visual novel of the life of an Indian eunuch, back in print

A mix of photobook, biography, autobiography and fiction, Myself Mona Ahmed–first published by Scalo in 2001–continues to renew its importance in Dayanita Singh’s (born 1961) oeuvre as her trajectory unfolds. Mona Ahmed was a eunuch, a member of a community of eunuchs, whom Singh met and lived with around 1990. Singh followed the daily life and rituals of the eunuchs, their parties and ceremonies, following the story of Ahmed’s castration and the loss of her adopted child. Ahmed’s refusal to be the passive subject of such a project pushed Singh into producing, eventually, a visual novel weaving various kinds of text alongside the photographs, including Ahmed’s emails. The Scalo edition, now rare, receives the full Steidl treatment in this volume.