No alphabets in sight : new dalit writing from south India

A new wave of writing in which dalit activists, political thinkers and creative writers put into place disturbing yet stimulating propositions about personal and public life in India No Alphabet in Sight is the first of two-volumes aimed at documenting the upsurge of dalit writing and thought in each of the major south Indian languages which began in the 1990s. This volume brings together in English translation the work of over forty intellectuals from Tamil Nadu and Kerala, and provides a textured feel of the new settings in which dalits themselves are addressing the dalit question today. The writers form a distinct group of post-Ambedkarite thinkers who do not belong to traditionally literate lineages. Self-conscious and assertive, they bring to their analyses the force and insight of personal experience as well as an alert awareness of theoretical propositions and political struggles the world over. Nearly all the writings in this volume first appeared outside mainstream publishing in energetic, self-financed little magazines. Experimental work draws on allegorical, mythical and spiritual modalities to push open a space outside the ghettoes of victimhood and golden pasts of dalit communities. 'Dalit' as a political idea is being fashioned today in grounded, practical relationships to the present. In its own small way, No Alphabet in Sight stands witness to this creation.