Reading Dalit Life-Narrative in the Aftermath of Literary Theory

Abstract

Over the last four decades, Dalit writing (literature of the suppressed,
and formerly untouchable sections of Indian society) has emerged as an
important constituent of Indian Writing in English as well as of Indian
writing in English translation, and it has attracted a lot of well-deserved
critical attention. This paper proposes to interrogate the strategies and
approaches used for analysing Dalit writing, especially Dalit lifenarratives.
In the wake of literary theory, the study and evaluation of
autobiographical narratives has been deeply problematised, and a
humanistic approach may not be able to do justice to the complexities of
Dalit life-narratives and its allied forms like Black- American, or slave
life-narratives.