The Third Dimension

Six years in the making, the book, 'The Pink Line' follows protagonists from nine countries all over the globe to tell the story of how LGBT Rights become one of the world's new human rights frontiers in the second decade of the twenty-first century.

From refugees in South Africa to activists in Egypt, transgender women in Russia and pen manaam konda aan ('women's hearts in men's bodies') in Tamil Nadu, 'The Pink Line' folds intimate and deeply affecting stories of individuals, families and communities into a definitive account of how the world has changed, dramatically, in just a decade.

And in doing so, he reveals a troubling new equation that has come in to play: while same-sex marriage and gender transition are now celebrated in some parts of the world, laws to criminalize homosexuality and gender non-conformity have been strengthened in others. A work of great scope and wonderful storytelling, this is the groundbreaking, definitive account of how issues of sexuality and gender identity divide and unite the world today.

The author of the book, journalist, commentator and essayist, Mark Gevisser has written for publications including The New York Times, The Guardian, Granta, The New York Review of Books, The Nation, The Wall Street Journal and the Los Angeles Times. His previous books include the award-winning A Legacy of Liberation: Thabo Mbeki and the Future of South Africa's Dream, and Lost and Found in Johannesburg: A Memoir.

He has been a Rockefeller Resident at Bellagio and has taught narrative nonfiction at universities and in workshops. Born in Johannesburg in 1964 and educated at Yale, he lives in Cape Town with his partner.

He says in the book, "For the past eight years, I've been tracking the way a new human rights frontier has come to divide – and describe – the world in an entirely new way. This is the result of an explosive new conversation about sexual orientation and gender identity. In this respect the world is unimaginably different now to how it was just a generation ago. I went to over twenty countries to research The Pink Line – and my first trip was to India, in 2012; I was astounded by what I saw. Even though, at that point, Article 377 was still on the books, the campaign to get homosexuality decriminalized had changed society in astonishing ways – from LGBT 'affinity groups' in Indian and multinational companies, to the many Pride marches, to the way the Indian entertainment industry had found its gay characters. It seemed to me that supporting LGBT rights had become a marker of modernity, of being part of the global village. Over the past eight years, I've returned to India several times, and have been tracking the way the debate has shifted to transgender rights. If I begin my book in India, I end it there too: by telling the story of an amazing group of third-gender Kothis in a Tamil Nadu fishing village – struggling to be true to themselves while also staying within their families and communities."

Name of the book: The Pink Line

Author: Mark Gevisser

Publisher: Hapercollins

Price: Rs 699