Rebecca Devika Dharmapalan
My Pen Is Sharp like the Gun in My Hand

ISBN 978-1-953189-19-6
May 2025, English, 5 x 7 inches, 126 pages, softcover, spiral-bound
Edition of 300

In My Pen Is Sharp like the Gun in My Hand: On the Revolutionary Feminism of the Tamil Tigers, Rebecca Devika Dharmapalan challenges the legal frameworks that form an otherwise narrow understanding of the women who participated in the armed resistance movement Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE or Tamil Tigers) during the civil war in Sri Lanka from 1983–2009. As an archival project, My Pen Is Sharp like the Gun in My Hand centers the voices and lives of women of the LTTE as they respond to genocide, and considers their creative output in relationship to their armed resistance. In addition to Dharmapalan's feminist analysis of the movement, the book includes historic photographs by Roger Parton, poetry by LTTE women originally compiled and translated by Dr. N. Malathy, as well as a recent interview between the author and K., a member of LTTE. 

Rebecca Devika Dharmapalan is an interdisciplinary artist, archivist, and social theorist. Dharmapalan’s practice engages in conversation on memory, resistance, ontological genocide, and trauma. Her interest in revolutionary movements was sparked when she first learned about the Black Panther Party’s foundational work in the city she was born and raised in: Oakland, California. Seeing overlaps with the armed revolutionary movement of her own people, her work observes the patterns and overlap of oppressed communities globally. From the Black Panthers to the Tamil Tigers, Dharmapalan strongly believes that women who participate in revolutionary struggles are fighting for the future of feminism, and their participation in these movements should be carefully and meticulously archived. Dharmapalan has her bachelor’s degree in Sociology from the University of California Berkeley and her master’s from SOAS University of London where she studied Human Rights Law. Dharmapalan was Glamour’s College Woman of the Year 2017, awarded Teen Vogue’s 21 Under 21, and an OZY Genius Award winner 2018.