Writing Resistance

Laura R. Brueck is associate professor of Hindi literature and South Asian studies at Northwestern University. In 2013, she published a collection of English translations of Hindi author Ajay Navaria's short stories titled Unclaimed Terrain: Stories by Ajay Navaria. She is the author of numerous articles and book chapters about Hindi Dalit literature.

Writing Resistance is an original and timely contribution to scholarship on Hindi literature, modern Indian literature and Dalit studies. The work is well researched, using a judicious combination of Hindi and English sources and provides, for the first time in English, an overview of the central concerns of Hindi Dalit literature as both a political and aesthetic movement. -- Allison Busch, Columbia University Brueck's incisive book richly maps the multiple layers of print, public, and cultural performance of a Hindi Dalit countersphere in contemporary India. She provides new perspectives on the processes by which Hindi Dalit authors have been negotiating and reclaiming authority over literary spaces, its boundaries, and the power of representation. Her work documents a complex collage of the diverse, fractured, and distinct Dalit literary lineage in Hindi. -- Charu Gupta, University of Delhi The search for a scholarly, perceptive and timely interpretation of what is going on in the world of Hindi Dalit literature ends right here. In a wide-ranging investigation of origins, motivations and genres, Laura Brueck addresses the fundamental questions of what makes this literature Dalit, and what makes it literary; her fine book offers a sympathetic and yet penetrating guide to a vivacious new canon of Hindi prose. -- Rupert Snell, University of Texas at Austin A welcome addition to the corpus of Dalit Studies, South Asian Studies, Cultural Studies, Postcolonial Studies, Comparative Literature, and World Literature. -- Juned Shaikh South Asian History and Culture She offers us an incredibly rich and thought-provoking entree into the development, concerns, and artistry of this important literature. -- Nancy M. Martin Journal of Hindu Studies Vol. 9, no. 3

• Acknowledgments A Note on Transliteration Introduction Part 1. Mapping the Hindi Dalit Literary Sphere 1. The Hindi Dalit Counterpublic 2. The Problem of Premchand 3. Hindi Dalit Literary Criticism Part 2. Reading Hindi Dalit Literature 4. Good Dalits and Bad Brahmins 5. Dialect and Dialogue in the Margins 6. Alienation and Loss in the Dalit Experience of Modernity 7. Re-scripting Rape Conclusion Notes Bibliography Index