Poisoned Bread: Translations From Modern Marathi Dalit Literature

Silenced for centuries by caste prejudice and social oppression, the Dalits of Maharashtra (formerly called ‘untouchables’) have only in the last forty years found a powerful voice in Marathi literature. The revolutionary social movement launched by their leader Dr Ambedkar was paralleled by a wave of writing that exploded in poetry, prose, fiction and autobiography of a raw vigour, maturity, depth and richness of content, and shocking in its exposition of the bitterness of their experiences. One is jolted, too, by the quality of writing by a group denied access for long ages to any literary tradition. This important collection is the first anthology of Dalit literature. The writers more than eighty of them—presented here in English translations, are nearly all of the most prominent figures in Marathi Dalit literature, who have contributed to this unique phenomenon.