Joothan

A Dalit's Life

Omprakash Valmiki

9788185604633

Stree - Samya, 2003

Language: English

139 pages

Price INR 500.00
Book Club Price INR 400.00
INR 500.00
In stock
SKU
LWB628

'Joothan' refers to the scraps left on plates that are then given to Dalits to eat. In some ways, it is a symbol of the demeaning existence imposed on the Dalits, for whom autobiography is the preferred genre since it enables them to write of themselves.’ 'Joothan' refers to the scraps left on plates that are then given to Dalits to eat. In some ways, it is a symbol of the demeaning existence imposed on the Dalits, for whom autobiography is the preferred genre since it enables them to write of themselves and their communities, of their lived reality. In this book, the second autobiography in Hindi by a Dalit, readers are drawn into world where cruelty and deprivation seem to be the only reality, and they become aware of the complexities of caste oppression. Omprakash Valmiki talks of growing up in a village in north India in an untouchable caste, Chuhra, well before the defiant term 'Dalit' was coined. It is a story of survival, of terrible grief and oppression, of surmounting great odds to emerge as a freer human being.

Omprakash Valmiki

Omprakash Valmiki (30 June 1950 – 17 November 2013) was an Indian Dalit writer and poet. Well known for his autobiography, Joothan, considered a milestone in Dalit literature. He was born at the village of Barla in the Muzzafarnagar district of Uttar Pradesh. After retirement from Government Ordnance Factory, he lived in Dehradun where he died of complications arising out of stomach cancer on 17 November 2013.