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Dalit literature refers to a body of writing across Indian languages that centers the lived experiences of Dalit communities, confronting caste-based discrimination and social exclusion. It spans genres ranging from autobiography and poetry to short stories and novels. Its modern articulation gained momentum in the mid-20th century, drawing on earlier anti-caste thought such as Jyotirao Phule’s Gulamgiri (1873) and the writings of B. R. Ambedkar, and was galvanized by the Dalit Panthers movement in the 1970s. [1] [2] [3]
This list collects notable works that have defined and advanced Dalit literature’s themes, aesthetics, and public impact.
| Title (including translated titles) | Author |
|---|---|
| Becoming Babasaheb: The Life and Times of Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar (Volume 1) | Aakash Singh Rathore |
| Fakira | Annabhau Sathe |
| Unclaimed Terrain | Ajay Navaria |
| Dalit Kitchens of Marathwada | Shahu Patole |
| Bheda | Akhila Naik |
| Republic of Caste: Thinking Equality in the Time of Neoliberal Hindutva | Anand Teltumbde |
| The Persistence of Caste: The Khairlanji Murders and India's Hidden Apartheid | |
| Khairlanji: A Strange And Bitter Crop | |
| Karya | Aravind Malagatti |
| Poisoned Bread: Translations from Modern Marathi Dalit Literature | Arjun Dangle |
| Homeless in my Land: Translations from Modern Marathi Dalit Short Stories | |
| No entry for the new Sun: Translations from modern Marathi Dalit poetry | |
| Annihilation of Caste | B.R. Ambedkar |
| Castes in India: Their Mechanism, Genesis and Development | |
| Who were the Shudras? | |
| Buddha or Karl Marx | |
| When I Hid My Caste: Stories (जेव्हा मी जात चोरली होती) | Baburao Bagul |
| The Prisons We Broke | Baby Kamble |
| Kanshiram: Leader of the Dalits | Badri Narayan |
| Karukku | Bama |
| Harum-Scarum Saar & Other Stories | |
| Sangati: Events | |
| VANMAM: Vendetta | |
| Just One Word: Short Stories | |
| The Ichi Tree Monkey: New and Selected Stories | |
| Translating Caste | Basu Tapan |
| One Hundred Poems of Chokha Mela | Chokhamela, Chandrakant Kaluram Mhatre |
| Letters to Namdeo Dhasal | Chandramohan S |
| Vultures | Dalpat Chauhan |
| Fear and Other Stories | |
| Baluta | Daya Pawar |
| Under My Dark Skin Flows A Red River | Debi Chatterjee |
| Kusumabale | Devanura Mahadeva |
| Defying the Odds: The Rise of Dalit Entrepreneurs | Devesh Kapur |
| Ambedkar's World: The Making of Babasaheb and the Dalit Movement | Eleanor Zelliot |
| Untouchable Spring | G. Kalyana Rao |
| Understanding Caste: From Buddha To Ambedkar And Beyond | Gail Omvedt |
| Seeking Begumpura | |
| Dalit Visions (Tracts for the Times) | |
| Ambedkar: Towards an Enlightened India | |
| Father May Be an Elephant and Mother Only a Small Basket, But... | Gogu Shyamala |
| Gabbilam: A Dalit Epic | Gurram Jashuva |
| The Adivasi Will Not Dance | Hansda Sowvendra Shekhar |
| Pethavan: The Begetter | Imaiyam |
| If There is a God and Other Stories: Short Stories | |
| An Order from the Sky and Other Stories | |
| Stories of Social Awakening: Reflections of Dalit Refugee Lives of Bengal | Jatin Bala |
| Gulamgiri | Jyotirao Phule |
| How Are You Veg? Dalit Stories from Telugu | Joopaka Subhadra |
| Dalit Literatures in India | Joshil K. Abraham |
| Dalit Text: Aesthetics and Politics Re-imagined | Judith Misrahi-barak |
| Concealing Caste: Narratives of Passing and Personhood in Dalit Literature | K. Satyanarayana |
| An Introduction to Tamil Dalit Literature | K.A. Geetha |
| The Scar | K.A. Gunasekaran |
| Murder in Mudukulathur: Caste and Electoral Politics in Tamil Nadu | K.A. Manikumar |
| Dalit Lekhika: Women's Writings from Bengal | Kalyani Thakur Charal |
| Days Will Come Back | Kamal Dev Pall |
| Why I Am Not a Hindu | Kancha Ilaiah |
| Writing Resistance: The Rhetorical Imagination of Hindi Dalit Literature | Laura R. Brueck |
| The Branded | Laxman Gaikwad |
| Broken Man: In Search Of Homeland | Loknath Yashwant |
| The Oxford India Anthology of Malayalam Dalit Writing | M. Dasan |
| Don’t Want Caste | M.R. Renukumar |
| City, Slum and the Marginalised: Dalits and Muslims in Delhi Slums | M.V. Bijulal |
| Interrogating My Chandal Life: An Autobiography of a Dalit | Manoranjan Byapari |
| The Runaway Boy | |
| A Dalit History | Meena Kandasamy |
| Ms Militancy | |
| The Gypsy Goddess | |
| Before It Rains Again | Mudnakudu Chinnaswamy |
| Untouchable | Mulk Raj Anand |
| An Anthology Of Dalit Literature | |
| Critical Essays on Dalit Literature | Murali Manohar |
| Give Us This Day A Feast Of Flesh | N.D. Rajkumar |
| उन्हाच्या कटाविरुद्ध | Nagraj Manjule |
| A Current of Blood | Namdeo Dhasal |
| Namdeo Dhasal: Poet of the Underground Poems 1972-2006 | |
| Untouchables: My Family’s Triumphant Journey Out of the Caste System in Modern India | Dr. Narendra Jadhav |
| To Be Cared For: The Power of Conversion and Foreignness of Belonging in an Indian Slum | Nathaniel Roberts |
| Joothan: An Untouchable's Life | Omprakash Valmiki |
| Salaam | |
| Ghuspaithiye | |
| The Grip of Change | P. Sivakami |
| The Taming of Women | P. Sivakami & Pritham K. Chakravarthy (Tr.) |
| Black Coffee in a Coconut Shell: Caste as Lived Experience | Perumal Murugan |
| Let The Rumours Be True | Pradnya Daya Pawar |
| The Dalit Brahmin And Other Stories | Priya Adarkar (tr.) Sharankumar Limbale |
| Anthology of Telugu Dalit Writing | Purushotham |
| Dalit Personal Narratives: Reading Caste, Nation and Identity | Raj Kumar |
| Dalit Literature and Criticism | |
| Thunderstorm: Dalit Stories | Ratan Kumar Sambharia |
| Anthology of Tamil Dalit Writing | Ravikumar |
| On the Threshold: Songs of Chokhamela (Sacred Literature Series) | Rohini Mokashi-Punekar |
| Touchable Tales: Publishing And Reading Dalit Literature | S. Anand |
| Dalit Voices in Indian Poetry: A Study of Malayalam and Marathi Poems | Sakunthala A.I. |
| Collected Plays of Sanjay Jiwane: a saga of dalit-ism | Sanjay Jiwane |
| Dalit Kitchens of Marathwada | Shahu Patole (tr.) Bhushan Korgaonkar |
| Majya Jalmachi Chittarkatha | Shantabai Kamble |
| Survival and Other Stories: Bangla Dalit Fiction in Translation | Sankar Prasad Singha |
| The Outcaste (Akkarmashi) | Sharankumar Limbale |
| Hindu: A Novel | |
| Towards An Aesthetic Of Dalit Literature: History, Controversies And Considerations | |
| Writing Caste/Writing Gender: Reading Dalit Women's Testimonials | Sharmila Rege |
| Ooru Keri | Siddalingaiah |
| A Word With You, World: The Autobiography of a Poet | |
| Ants Among Elephants: An Untouchable Family and the Making of Modern India | Sujatha Gidla |
| Affairs of Caste: a Young Diary | Sumeet Samos |
| Dalit Feminist Theory: A Reader | Sunaina Arya |
| Caste Matters | Suraj Yengde |
| No Alphabet in Sight: New Dalit Writing from South India | Susie J. Tharu |
| Steel Nibs are Sprouting: New Dalit Writing from South India Dossier 2 | |
| The Exercise of Freedom: An Introduction to Dalit Writing | |
| Hindi Dalit Literature in the United Provinces: Swami Acchutanand and Chandrika Prasad Jigyasu, 1900-1930 | Tapan Basu |
| Listen to the Flames: Texts and Readings from the Margins | |
| Untouchable Fictions: Literary Realism and the Crisis of Caste | Toral Jatin Gajarawala |
| Manikarnika | Tulsiram |
| Motherwit | Urmila Pawar |
| The Weave of My Life: A Dalit Woman's Memoirs (Aaydan) | |
| Growing Up Untouchable in India: A Dalit Autobiography | Vasant Moon |
| Kakka: a Dalit Novel | Vemula Yellaiah |
| Coming Out as Dalit: A Memoir | Yashica Dutt |
| Water in a Broken Pot | Yogesh Maitreya |
| Singing/Thinking Anti Caste: Essays on Anti Caste Music and Text | |
| The Bridge of Migration | |
| Blues from Bhimnagar |