Karukku

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The first suchIn 1992 when a Dalit woman left the convent and wrote her autobiography, the Tamil publishing industry found her language unacceptable. So Bama Faustina published her milestone work Karukku privately in 1992 a passionate and important mix of history, sociology, and the strength to remember.

Karukku broke barriers of tradition in more ways than one. The first autobiography by a Dalit woman writer and a classic of subaltern writing, it is a bold and poignant tale of life outside mainstream Indian thought and function. Revolving around the main theme of caste oppression within the Catholic Church, it portrays the tension between the self and the community, and presents Bama’s life as a process of self-reflection and recovery from social and institutional betrayal.

The English translation, first published in 2000 and recognized as a new alphabet of experience, pushed Dalit writing into high relief. Alongside an updated Introduction by the translator Lakshmi Holmström, this second edition also includes a Postscript in which Bama relives the dramatic moment of her leave-taking from her chosen vocation and a special note ‘Ten Years Later’.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR Lakshmi Holmstrom

Lakshmi Holmstromis a writer and tranlator, who studied at Madras and Oxford. She is the author of Indian Fiction in English: the Novels of R.K. Narayan (Calcutta: Writers' Workshop, 1973), editor of The Inner Courtyard: Short Stories by Indian Women (London: Virga, 1990), and co-editor of Writing from India (Cambridge University Press, 1994), a collection of stories from India for readers aged 14-16. Her retelling of the fifth-century Tamil narrative poems Silappadikaram and Manimekalai was published in 1996 (Madras: Orient Longman). Her main work has been translating the short stories and novels of the major contemporary writers in Tamil: Mauni, Pudumaippittan, Ashokamitran, Sundara Ramaswamy, Ambai, Baama and Imayam. In 2000 she received the Crossword Book Award in India, for her translation of Karukku by Bama. Founder-Trustee of Salidaa (South Asian Diaspora Literature and Arts Archive). Royal Literary Fund writing fellow, University of East Anglia, 2003-5.

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Bibliographic information

Title
Karukku
Author
Edition
1st ed.
Publisher
ISBN
0199450412, 9780199450411
Length
xxiv+142p., 23cm.
Subjects