Presenting the different phases of Dalit writing from the late nineteenth century to the present in Tamil Nadu, this anthology represents the work of 42 writers. The 78 selections from poetry, fiction (short stories and excerpts from novels), drama, and prose (autobiographies, speeches, biographies, and archival materials), with all, save 12, pieces specially translated for this anthology help understand the operations of caste power in Indian society and politics.

With 55 selections from songs, poems, short stories, excerpts from novels, biographical sketches, plays, and critical writings, this volume represents the work of 36 writers and 19 translators. With all, save three, pieces specially translated for this anthology, the selections arranged chronologically present a worldview and vocabulary of the Dalit movement in Kerala built on rebellion and a struggle for identity and recognition.

The anthology is an attempt to showcase over a hundred years of Dalit writing in Telugu, representing Dalit movements, Dalit activism, Dalit womens activism, and Dalit critiques of Hinduism and the Left, besides other specific concerns. Perhaps no other state in India has had an active Dalit movement alongside the movements led by the Left. Other states too have a formidable body of Dalit literature, but the Dalit movement in Andhra Pradesh has sustained itself despite a series of other mainstream movements. The selection represents nearly a century of Dalit writing and Dalit movements, and at every turn, bears proof to the fact that Telugu Dalit writing is diverse, deeply embedded in modernity, in changing culture, and in the politics of the region and the nation. The anthology brings together a living tradition that spans ancient and contemporary periods and all aspects of Dalit life. The selection begins with poems and songs from the oral tradition, the oldest known verbal art forms which is the backbone of Telugu Dalit arts and letters. Moving on chronologically, it includes poems, short stories, novel excerpts, critical writings, etc. capturing the Dalit nationalist, regional and feminist movements that ran parallel to elite movements.

Tamil Dalit feminist poetry occurs in the nexus of caste demands and literary expectations based on Tamil “high culture,” as set in the literary conventions of both classical and contemporary aesthetics. Tamil Dalit feminist poets and their allies challenge literary expectations set for women poets as well as caste stigma. In Tamil Dalit Feminist Poetics: Resistance, Power, and Solidarity, Pramila Venkateswaran argues that Dalit poets Sukirtharani, Arangamallika, Umadevi, Meena Kandasamy, and Tamil feminist allies, such as Malathi Maitri and Kutty Revathi, challenge the literary tradition of Tamil poetry by presenting their radical poems on themes based on their experience and witnessing the trauma of violence on Dalit women’s bodies, thus placing caste and gender at the center of their work. They assert their subjectivity, offering us a feminist poetics that is rich with insights on the Dalit body, spirituality, music, culture, Dalit connection to land, and democracy. Their poems theorize women’s experiences, using metaphor, symbol, folk idioms, as well as satire and irony to express feminist connectedness to all spheres of life. Replete with anti-caste resistance of language, form, and content, Tamil Dalit feminist poets reframe both feminism and contemporary Tamil poetry. Thus, Dalit feminist poetry and other cultural productions are vehicles for solidarity and democracy.

A TONIGHT SHOW SUMMER READS FINALIST An electrifying first novel from "a riveting new voice in American fiction" (George Saunders): A young woman returns to her childhood home in the American South and uncovers secrets about her father's life and death Billie James' inheritance isn't much: a little money and a shack in the Mississippi Delta. The house once belonged to her father, a renowned black poet who died unexpectedly when Billie was four years old. Though Billie was there when the accident happened, she has no memory of that day—and she hasn't been back to the South since. Thirty years later, Billie returns but her father's home is unnervingly secluded: her only neighbors are the McGees, the family whose history has been entangled with hers since the days of slavery. As Billie encounters the locals, she hears a strange rumor: that she herself went missing on the day her father died. As the mystery intensifies, she finds out that this forgotten piece of her past could put her in danger. Inventive, gritty, and openhearted, The Gone Dead is an astonishing debut novel about race, justice, and memory that lays bare the long-concealed wounds of a family and a country.

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. With contributions from major scholars in the field, it critically examines Dalit literary theory and initiates a dialogue between Dalit writing and Western literary theory.