Cover via Google Books
Karukku
Bama
Bama's autobiography, first published in Tamil in 1992 and widely seen as the first by a Dalit woman in Tamil. Named after the saw-edged palmyra leaves she handled as a child, it tells of growing up Dalit and Christian in a Tamil Nadu village, and of her decision to leave the convent where she had become a nun.
Vivek’s Notes
Won the Crossword Book Award for Indian Language Fiction Translation in 2000, translated from the Tamil by Lakshmi Holmström. Bama chronicles her life growing up in a marginalised Dalit community, and how caste dictates daily life, labour, social hierarchy and humiliation from childhood into adulthood.
Featured in LQL
- Crossword Book Prize - Translation · GW4 · Tough25% answered
