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18 Books found in this category

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Women's Writing in Translation

Her-Self: Early Writings on Gender by Malayalee Women 1898-1938

By: Translated from the Malayalam and edited by J.Devika. Foreword by V.Geetha

This collection of early writings by Malayalee women, translated for the first time into English, gives us, in the words of V. Geetha, ‘texts that dazzle’. Written between 1898-1938, they reveal the vigorous debate over modern gender relations that was taking place in this period. Women reflected on what was ‘Womanly’, on education, duties, vocation and civil roles, an ongoing discussion, first influenced by reformism and later by nationalist and communist ideas, which remain alive today.
The anthology also contains many spirited rejoinders to distinguished male intellectuals who opposed women’s employment or ‘intrusion’ into public space. J. Devika also discusses what is excluded from the Womanhood that is being talked about as well as a need to define what is non-Womanly.

J. Devika is a research associate, Centre for Development Studies, Thiruvananthapuram. V. Geetha is an independent scholar and editorial director of Tara Publishing.

Published by: Stree

Publication Date: February, 2005

Translated from: Early Writings on Gender by Malayalee Women

ISBN Code: 81-85604-74-6

Price: Rs 450.00

Pages: 268

Women's Writing in Translation

The Impermanence of Lies: Stories of Jyotirmoyee Devi

By: Introduction by Mahasweta Devi Translated from the Bengali by a group of translators

This first-ever collection of Jyotirmoyee Devi’s short stories in an English translation from the original Bengali spans forty years of the author’s career. Her interests ranged from the feudal world of the princely state of Jaipur, to East Bengal at the time of Partition, to the urban world of our cities. The stories reflect her concern with many issues painfully relevant even today: how traditional cultures try to cope with change and how individuals navigate their way between the old and the new, the causes of female infanticide, women caught in the crossfire of communalism and the commodification of women in various ways. Humane yet unsentimental, sometimes quite stark, the author is extraordinarily modern in tone and style. Her vision shows us a host of characters, often caught between the past and the future, the home and the world outside.

Published by: Stree

Publication Date: February, 1998

Translated from: Stories of Jyotirmoyee Devi

ISBN Code: 81-85604-21-5

Price: Rs 130.00

Pages: 158

Caste / Cultural Studies / History / Politics

Venomous Touch: Notes on Caste, Culture and Politics

By: Ravikumar. Translated from the Tamil by R. Azhagarasan. Foreword by Susie Tharu

Combative, however partisan, and yet often beguilingly playful, these essays, many translated from the Tamil for the first time, bring Ravikumar’s concerns to a wider audience. Ranging from the centrality of caste, the logic of communalism, ideas on culture, the politics of the media, education, censorship and literature, just to mention a few of his interests, these essays provide an unsettling impact on the consensuses of democratic India. As he himself talks of in the Preface, for him the personal is political, and questions of power in society, derived from his engagement with Marx, Bakunin, Derrida, Foucault and other philosophers and his wide readings in Tamil literature, permeate his writings.
Throbbing with righteous anger at centuries of oppression and denial against dalits, this collection of essays, as Susie Tharu says in her incisive Foreword, act as ‘both poison/venom and remedy’.

Published by: Samya

Publication Date: 2009

ISBN Code: 978-81-85604-76-3

Price: Rs 650.00

Pages: 320

Caste / Contemporary Issues / General / History

The Whole Truth and Nothing but the Truth: A Dalit’s Life

By: B. Kesharshivam. Translated from the Gujarati by Gita Chaudhuri

B. Kesharshivam born and raised in poverty in the dalit moholla of Kalol in north Gujarat, passed the Gujarat Public Service Examinations to become a mamlatdar, a revenue officer, and finally a Class 1 officer who held many significant postings including comptroller of the household to the governor of Gujarat. Yet as he says, ‘At every step in life I was made aware of being a dalit.’ Translated from the Gujarati original, Purnasatya, this is the first autobiography of a dalit in Gujarati. Beginning with his life as a child who plays in the dust of the bone meal factory, where he later works, going on to labour with his parents in the ‘cotter mill’, the book presents a non-sentimental account of a childhood where friendships exist, sometimes across castes, and discrimination and abuse are constants. The second part of his story relates to his working life, his struggles on behalf of the dalits and the tribal populations against a backdrop of continuous discrimination.

Published by: Samya

Publication Date: 2008

Translated from: Purnasatya

ISBN Code: 978-81-85604-87-9

Price: Rs 350.00

Pages: 342

Cultural Studies / History / Memoirs / Politics and Political Theory

A Prattler’s Tale: Bengal, Marxism, Governance

By: Ashok Mitra. Translated from the Bengali by Sirpa Bhattacharya

Offering a thought-provoking, incisive analysis of Bengal and India, Ashok Mitra’s memoirs, translated for the first time into English, brings contemporary India alive. He dissects the ideals, foibles, prejudices and flaws of the middle class. The Partition of India found him and his family leave the new country of East Pakistan for a new India where they had to re-build lives. He analyses the fledgling Indian democracy, taking readers through the heady days of the five year plans in the 1950s.Throughout the book, he also weaves in the cultural and literary history of Bengal as his literary interests have been as vital as his political ones. Mitra’s reminiscences are enriched by his analysis of Marxism and Marxists in India, of how the Left Front in the state of West Bengal functioned, his stint as minister of finance and planning in the late 1970s and 1980s, and reasons for his sudden resignation. He is open about his disagreements with globalization and liberalization.

Published by: Samya

Publication Date: 2007

Translated from: Apila Chapila (Ananda 2003)

ISBN Code: 978-81-85604-80-0

Price: Rs 595.00

Pages: 484

Caste / Cultural Studies / History / Politics and Political Theory

Mai Hindu Kyun Nahi: Hindutva Darshan, Sanskriti Aur Rajnitik Arthashashtra ka Ek Shudravadi Vishleshan

By: Kancha Ilaiah. Translated from the English by Omprakash Valmiki

This is the authorized translation of the revised edition as true to the original as is possible in a translation. Translated and edited meticulously, the book is presented to the Hindi-speaking public in the hope that it may be of use to Dalitbahujan activists as well as awaken the interest of the wider society.
In this revised edition, Kancha Ilaiah presents an Afterword that discusses the history of this book, often seen as the manifesto of the downtrodden Dalitbahujans. He talks of its reviews as well of the abuse he has received from its detractors, and his analysis of the text that was first published in 1996 and has been reprinted eight times before the appearance of the new edition. He reminds us of the need for an ongoing dialogue.

Published by: Samya

Publication Date: October, 2006

Translated from: why I Am Not A Hindu

ISBN Code: 978-81-85604-91-6

Price: Rs 154.00

Pages: 120

Anthropology / Caste / Cultural Studies / Gender Studies

Joothan: A Dalit’s Life

By: Omprakash Valmiki Translated from the Hindi by Arun Prabha Mukherjee

'Joothan' refers to the scraps left on plates that are then given to Dalits to eat. In some ways it is a symbol of the demeaning existence imposed on the Dalits, for whom autobiography is the preferred genre since it enables them to write of themselves and their communities, of their lived reality. In this book, the second autobiography in Hindi by a Dalit, readers are drawn into world where cruelty and deprivation seem to be the only reality, and they become aware of the complexities of caste oppression. Omprakash Valmiki talks of growing up in a village in north India in an untouchable caste, Chuhra, well before the defiant term 'Dalit' was coined. It is a story of survival, of terrible grief and oppression, of surmounting great odds to emerge as a freer human being.
‘How come we were never mentioned in any epic? Why didn’t an epic poet ever write a word on our lives?’

Published by: Samya

Publication Date: 2007

Translated from: Joothan

ISBN Code: 978-81-85604-63-3

Price: Rs 260.00

Pages: 120

Caste / Cultural Studies / History / Politics and Political Theory

Talisman: Extreme Emotions of Dalit Liberation

By: Thirumaavalavan. Translated from the Tamil by Meena Kandasamy

As the leader of the Viduthalai Chiruthaigal, the Liberation Panthers, Thiumaavalavan brings the passion of his commitment to social justice to these speeches that have been translated from the Tamil into English for the first time. Fighting for the basic rights of the people of the cheris, the slums, the humble folk who get trampled on, murdered or raped at will because of the caste system, now bolstered by the ideology of Hindutva, these speeches get to the heart of the prevailing injustice in India's democracy. Many of the atrocities have not been reported in the media, and thus the book provides a valuable record of what is taking place.

Published by: Samya

Publication Date: February, 2004

ISBN Code: 978-81-85604-68-8

Price: Rs 200.00

Pages: 216

Cultural Studies / Gender Studies / Literature / Women's Writing in Translation

The Dark Sun and the Woman Who Wore a Hat

By: Kamal Desai. Translated from the Marathi by Sukhmani Roy

‘Moving within this text that seems like entering a Dali painting, one is shaken awake—to the fact that everything can be perceived in different ways, that the given is not the only way of looking at things.’–New Quest
This translation provides access to the major works of a leading Marathi writer. The two novellas embody the tensions and cross-currents of an indigenous modernity even as they deconstruct it. Kamal Desai’s fiction is focussed on the micro-levels of inner life where experience is held together by the compelling and never predictable struggle for selfhood. Nearly always, subtle and ongoing antagonisms structure and threaten Kamal Desai’s imagined communities.

Published by: Stree

Publication Date: February, 1999

ISBN Code: 978-81-85604-07-7

Price: Rs 140.00

Pages: 186

Cultural Studies / Literature / Sociology / Women's Writing in Translation

Whom Can I Tell? How Can I Explain?: Selected Stories by Saroj Pathak

By: Saroj Pathak. Translated from the Gujarati and with an introduction by Shirin Kudchedkar

‘Short, intense and readable, the action of these stories is predominantly in the minds of characters who are chiefly, but not only, women and children.’ –– Shobhana Bhattacharji, The Book Review
These English translations from the Gujarati bring Saroj Pathak's work to a wider audience, giving it the greater attention it deserves. Delving deep into the human mind, the stories depict the pitfalls of communication, the infinite possibilities of misunderstanding, of doubt and despair. At the same time they celebrate the human psyche's ability to bridge these chasms and made connections, of love, understanding, and friendship. Pathak considers the predicaments of both women and men as they grapple with the modernity that has been thrust upon them. Indeed, Pathak's interest in men as well as women characters distinguishes her from many other women novelists.

Published by: Stree

Publication Date: January, 2002

ISBN Code: 978-81-85604-14-5

Price: Rs 150.00

Pages: 138

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