Dalit Literatures in India by Abraham, Joshil K.; Misrahi-Barak, Judith;

Short description:

This book breaks new ground in the study of Dalit Literature, including in its corpus a range of genres such as novels, autobiographies, pamphlets, poetry, short stories as well as graphic novels. This second edition includes a new Introduction which takes stock of developments since 2015, and discusses how Dalit writing has come to play a major role in asserting marginal identities in contemporary Indian politics.

Long description:

This book breaks new ground in the study of Dalit literature, including in its corpus a range of genres such as novels, autobiographies, pamphlets, poetry, short stories and graphic novels. With contributions from major scholars in the field, alongside budding ones, the book critically examines Dalit literary production and theory. It also initiates a dialogue between Dalit writing and Western literary theory.

This second edition includes a new Introduction which takes stock of developments since 2015. It discusses how Dalit writing has come to play a major role in asserting marginal identities in contemporary Indian politics while moving towards establishing a more radical voice of dissent and protest.

Lucid, accessible yet rigorous in its analysis, this book will be indispensable for scholars and researchers of Dalit studies, social exclusion studies, Indian writing, literature and literary theory, politics, sociology, social anthropology and cultural studies.

"With this eclectic collection of critical essays, written from a range of positions and raising a variety of issues, it is clear that Dalit literature has come of age." - Susie Tharu, Department of Cultural Studies, The English and Foreign Languages University, Hyderabad

"The collection includes 21 well-written scholarly essays and a very useful selective bibliography of primary and secondary sources (books, journal articles, book chapters, and dissertations) on Dalit literature. In their excellent introduction Abraham (Guru Gobind Singh Indraprastha Univ., India) and Misrahi-Barak (Université Paul-Valéry, France) deal with the history and progress of Dalit literature in India. The book is an excellent addition to world literature, and this reviewer looks forward to studies that examine the contributions of Dalits from all religions of India."  - R. N. Sharma, CHOICE

"This volume of essays is commendable because each essay widens out the field of inquiry in a centrifugal pattern. Each widening circle of analysis allows the reader to grasp the intersections of thought and pursue his/her own understanding of the larger questions." - Nilak Datta, IACLALS Journal, vol. 2

"One final, outstanding quality of this remarkable volume that warrants special attention is its potential as a research tool. Given the very recent nature of the discipline, the precise and thorough bibliographies that conclude each chapter provide precious references for researchers interested in these questions." - Lissa Lincoln, The American University of Paris, Postcolonial Studies Association

Table of Contents:

Introduction to the Second Edition: Taking stock, Updating, Moving forward.  Introduction: Dalit Literatures in India: in, out and beyond  1. Caste differently  2. Caste and democracy: three paradoxes  3. The politics of Dalit literature  4. ‘No name is yours until you speak it’: notes towards a contrapuntal reading of Dalit literatures and postcolonial theory  5. Language and translation in Dalit literature  6. Negotiations with faith: conversion, identity and historical continuity  7. Resisting together separately: representations of the Dalit–Muslim question in literature  8. Creating their own gods: literature from the margins of Bengal  9. Caste and the literary imagination in the context of Odia literature: a reading of Akhila Nayak’s Bheda  10. Questions of caste, commitment and freedom in Gujarat, India: towards a reading of Praveen Gadhvi’s The City of Dust and Lust  11. Dalit intellectual poets of Punjab: 1690–1925  12. Life, history and politics: Kallen Pokkudan's two autobiographies and the Dalit print imaginations in Keralam  13. Dalits writing, Dalits speaking: on the encounters between Dalit autobiographies and oral histories  14. A Life Less Ordinary: the female subaltern and Dalit literature in contemporary India  15. Witnessing and experiencing Dalitness: in defence of Dalit women’s Testimonio  16. Literatures of suffering and resistance: Dalit women’s Testimonios and Black women slave narratives – a comparative study  17. Polluting the page: Dalit women’s bodies in autobiographical literature  18. Intimacy across caste and class boundaries in Arundhati Roy’s The God of Small Things  19. Caste as the baggage of the past: global modernity and the cosmopolitan Dalit identity  20. Tense – past continuous: some critical reflections on the art of Savi Sawarkar  21. The Indian graphic novel and Dalit trauma: A Gardener in the Wasteland