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Though Dalit narratives have been a part of the Indian social narratives since 11th century CE onwards, with works like Cekkilar’s Periya Puranam documenting Dalit life, Dalit literature emerged into prominence and as a collective voice after 1960, starting with Marathi, and soon appeared in Hindi, Kannada, Telugu and Tamil languages, though self narratives, like poems, short stories and most importantly autobiographies known for their fierce and often stark realism, and for its contribution to the Dalit politics. It denounced as petty and false the then prevailing romanticism with the bourgeois Sadashiv Pethi literature treated the whole Dalit issue, ignoring the social reality of appalling poverty and oppression of caste Hindus which was the result of the bourgeois character of this culture. In this book also select Dalit writings are to be provided to acquaint the reader with some of the dominant and non-dominant themes recurring in them. This book is a departure of traditional analysis rather emphasising on the critical part of Dalit literature in modern context. This book discuses the recurring themes and important writers of all states. Major themes and important works are analysed separately.

Contents: Preface. 1. Introduction. 2. Dalit literature: past and present. 3. Aesthetics of Dalit poetry. 4. Dalit aesthetics: a study of Bhakti period. 5. Marathi Dalit literature. 6. Tamil Dalit literature. 7. Gujarati Dalit literature. 8. Rich heritage in Punjabi Dalit literature and its exclusion from history. 9. Dalit feminism: a transformation of rejection into resistance. 10. Representation of Dalit women in autobiographies. 11. Om Prakash Valmiki’s Joothan a Dalit autobiography. 12. Dalit women in Baby Kamble’s the prisons we broke. 13. Urmila Pawar’s Aayadan: a new perspective. 14. Poems of pain and stories of Sadness: Dalit literature. 15. The poetics of postcolonial atrocity: Dalit life writing, testimonio and human rights. 16. Emergence of Dalit Novel: changing notion of freedom. 17. Teaching of Dalit literature in higher education. Bibliography. Index.