Dalit Lekhika: Women’s Writings from Bengal

Description

In these words, Kalyani Thakur Charal explains why Dalit women writers are different, and how hard it has been for them to write and get published. Until a few decades ago, Dalit literature in Bengal was written mainly by men, who were disregarded by mainstream publishing and impelled to run their own publishing ventures, literary journals like Chaturtha Duniya, which also provided space for women.

Recognizing the political and social complexities where caste is invisibilized, Sayantan Dasgupta suggests that the anthology brings together ‘gender and caste as the point of entry, though class, too, figures as a core definig element in the chosen pieces, constructing a particular, complex and layered ;iterary landscape as a part of Bangla literature that generally seems to escape our eyes’.