"My mother used to weave aaydans, the Marathi generic term for all things made from bamboo. I find that her act of weaving and my act of writing are organically linked. The weave is similar. It is the weave of pain, suffering, and agony that links us." Activist and award-winning writer Urmila Pawar recounts three generations of Dalit women who struggled to overcome the burden of their caste. Dalits, or untouchables, make up India's poorest class. Forbidden from performing anything but the most undesirable and unsanitary duties, for years Dalits were believed to be racially inferior and polluted by nature and were therefore forced to live in isolated communities. Pawar grew up on the rugged Konkan coast, near Mumbai, where the Mahar Dalits were housed in the center of the village so the upper castes could summon them at any time. As Pawar writes, "the community grew up with a sense of perpetual insecurity, fearing that they could be attacked from all four sides in times of conflict. That is why there has always been a tendency in our people to shrink within ourselves like a tortoise and proceed at a snail's pace." Pawar eventually left Konkan for Mumbai, where she fought for Dalit rights and became a major figure in the Dalit literary movement. Though she writes in Marathi, she has found fame in all of India. In this frank and intimate memoir, Pawar not only shares her tireless effort to surmount hideous personal tragedy but also conveys the excitement of an awakening consciousness during a time of profound political and social change.

Combative, however partisan, and yet often beguilingly playful, these essays, many translated from the Tamil for the first time, bring Ravikumars 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. Ravikumar charts the history of discrimination against dalits in terms of land ownership, labour and education, condemns the celebration of the golden jubilee of independence under Hindu authority in 'independent India'. He declares that fundamentalism moves hand in hand with consumer culture. He provocatively critiques the film-maker Lenins much awarded docu-feature, Knock-Out. He writes on some of the most horrendous tales of the slaughter of dalits -- the Melavalavu murder -- where power overturns the rule of law. 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'.

Every one of us lives in a box. This box determines what we see and what we do not see. It tells us who to love and hate. What to fight for. How to live. Who we are. Our boxes -- the collection of stories we tell about ourselves and the world -- create the human drama. Whether you become a pawn in this drama or take control of your destiny depends on the ability to answer two questions: Why is my box the way it is? How can I transform it? By examining the forces that have shaped your most deeply held beliefs, this book challenges you to think outside the box that society has provided for you ... ... and begin writing your own story.

Mariah Stevens doesn't take no for an answer. Her take-charge, tough-as-nails exterior has helped her become Book Review Editor at Spirit Magazine - no small feat considering she's only 29. She lives in a stunning apartment in Manhattan, her clothes are ripped straight from the runways, and her manicured nails are never chipped. Life is good. Her secret weapon? Her long, glorious weave, which she's been wearing since she was 16. It's her power, her strength, and she's completely addicted to it. She can't even remember what her real hair looks like. In a sudden move, Spirit Magazine folds, and for the first time in her life Mariah is left asking, "What's next?" WIth her savings dwindling, she's forced to remove her weave and make the call that she hasn't made in years - the call home. Now Mariah is back home in Houston, living with her bi-racial sister and light-skinned mother, both of whom are blessed with hair long enough to sleep in. Mariah has always stuck out like a sore thumb, and is constantly reminded of such with her dark skin and short, kinky hair. Living in Houston has Mariah facing her old demons, and without the support of her weave she's losing her most important asset: her self-confidence. When she discovers a family secret, it opens doors to her past and threatens to break her already fragile world apart. With her sister by her side, Mariah is determined to learn the truth. Unbeweaveable is about Mariah's quest to confront questions of love, loyalty, and family to find her way back home.

I've long found writing scratches places just out of reach somewhere in my psyche. Amazingly, I often have friends, acquaintances, even total strangers tell me my words somehow scratch hard to reach places for them as well. Each of our lives is a wondrous tapestry in the making. The most satisfying experience I have is seeing people embrace God's plan for them, to begin to see something beautiful emerge from all the disjointed knots and loose end of their often severely troubled lives. I've collected a number of my own knots and threads here, often frayed ends becoming part of the tapestry of my life. Some dark. Some brilliant. Some fuzzy. Some gold. I trust all will become something beautiful in the end.