Sukirtharani is an Indian feminist [1] [2] [3] poet who is widely acclaimed for her contribution to contemporary Dalit and Tamil literature. [4]
Sukirtharani is also a Tamil teacher at the Government Girls High School in Ranipet District, and has a master's degree in economics and Tamil literature. [1] Her works include six published collection of poems. [4] The works themselves have been described as celebratory towards the female body and a chastisement of the oppressive caste system which encapsulate a dual experience of being born both a female and a dalit. [3] Her works have also been noted to have an eco-feminist approach to them. [5] She has featured alongside the poets Kutti Revathi, Malathi Maithri and Salma in Lakshmi Holmström's translated compilation Wild Girls Wicked Words. [6] Holmström in her anthology describes Sukirtharani as one who seeks "an infant language with all the rough and physical reality of new birth, sticky with blood". [7]
She has received a number of awards such as the Thevamagal Kavithoovi Award, the Pengal Munnani Achiever Award and the Puthumaipitthan Memorial Award. [1] [4]
C. Subramania Bharathi was a Tamil writer, poet, journalist, Indian independence activist, social reformer and polyglot. He was bestowed the title "Bharathi" for his excellence in poetry. He was a pioneer of modern Tamil poetry and is considered one of the greatest Tamil literary figures of all time. He is popularly known by his mononymous title "Bharathi/ Bharathiyaar," and also by the other title "Mahakavi Bharathi". His numerous works included fiery songs kindling patriotism during the Indian Independence movement. He fought for the emancipation of women, against child marriage, vehemently opposed the caste system, and stood for reforming society and religion. He was also in solidarity with Dalits and Muslims.
Gurram Jashuva was a Telugu poet. He is legendary figure in the Telugu literary world. With his immense wisdom and through the struggle he faced due to the caste-based discrimination, Jashuva wrote his poetry with a universal approach. He was called the "Poet of the Millennium" for his timeless pieces of poetry and literature.
Marathi literature is the body of literature of Marathi, an Indo-Aryan language spoken mainly in the Indian state of Maharashtra and written in the Devanagari and Modi script.
Dalit, also previously known as untouchables, is the lowest stratum of the castes in the Indian subcontinent. Dalits were excluded from the four-fold varna system of Hinduism and were seen as forming a fifth varna, also known by the name of Panchama. Dalits predominantly follow Hinduism, with significant populations of the adherents of Buddhism, Sikhism, Christianity, and Islam. Scheduled Castes is the official term for Dalits, who get reservation under Positive discrimination, as per the constitution of India.
George Luzerne Hart, III is Professor Emeritus of Tamil language at the University of California, Berkeley. His work focuses on the classical Tamil literature and on identifying the relationships between the Tamil and Sanskrit literature. In 2015 the Government of India awarded him the title of Padma Shri, the fourth highest civilian honour.
Kuṟuntokai is a classical Tamil poetic work and traditionally the second of the Eight Anthologies (Ettuthokai) in the Sangam literature. The collection belongs to the akam (love) category, and each poem consists of 4 to 8 lines each. The Sangam literature structure suggests that the original compilation had 400 poems, but the surviving Kuruntokai manuscripts have 402 poems. According to Takanobu Takahashi – a Tamil literature scholar, these poems were likely composed between 100 CE and 300 CE based on the linguistics, style and dating of the authors. Kamil Zvelebil, a Tamil literature and history scholar, states that the majority of the poems in the Kuruntokai were likely composed between the 1st century BCE and the 2nd century CE. The Kuruntokai manuscript colophon states that it was compiled by Purikko (உரை), however nothing is known about this compiler or the patron.
Mannu Bhandari Yadav was an Indian author, screenplay writer, teacher, and playwright. Primarily known for her two Hindi novels, Aap Ka Bunty and Mahabhoj (Feast), Bhandari also wrote over 150 short stories, several other novels, screenplays for television and film, and adaptations for theater. She was a pioneer of the Nayi Kahani movement in Hindi literature, which focused on the aspirations of the emerging Indian middle class, and her own work is notable for its depiction of the inner lives of middle class working and educated women. Her work tackles themes of family, relationships, gender equality, and caste discrimination in India.
Sri Lankan Tamil literature or Ceylon Tamil literature refers to Tamil literature produced in the current day country of Sri Lanka by various Tamil speaking communities such as the Sri Lankan Tamils, Indian Tamils of Sri Lanka and Sri Lankan Muslims. The earliest extant records survived from the Sangam age academies and continued in the medieval era in the courts of the Jaffna kingdom until modern times. The destruction of the Saraswathy Mahal library of Nallur and the burning of Jaffna library led to the loss of a large tract of Sri Lankan Tamil literature, although much survives through oral traditions and the unearthing and preservation of palm-leaf manuscripts, copper plate inscriptions & stone inscriptions.
Ilavenil Meena Kandasamy is an Indian poet, fiction writer, translator and activist from Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India.
Dalit literature is a genre of Indian writing that focuses on the lives, experiences, and struggles of the Dalit community, who have faced caste-based oppression and discrimination for centuries. As Jobymon Skaria explains, "Dalit literature has been the most potent literary expression of Dalits' daily struggle for human dignity." This literature encompasses various Indian languages such as Marathi, Bangla, Hindi, Kannada, Punjabi, Sindhi, Odia and Tamil and includes diverse narratives like poems, short stories, and autobiographies. The movement originated in response to the caste-based social injustices in mid-twentieth-century independent India and has since spread across various Indian languages, critiquing caste practices and experimenting with different literary forms.
Bama , also known as Bama Faustina Soosairaj, is a Tamil Dalit feminist, teacher and novelist. Her autobiographical novel Karukku (1992) chronicles the joys and sorrows experienced by Dalit Christian women in Tamil Nadu. She subsequently wrote two more novels, Sangati (1994) and Vanmam (2002) along with three collections of short stories: Kusumbukkaran (1996) and Oru Tattvum Erumaiyum (2003), 'Kandattam'(2009). In addition to this, she has written twenty short stories.
Urmila Pawar is an Indian writer and activist in the dalit and feminist movements in India and her works, all of which are written in Marathi language, have often been hailed as a critique of social discrimination and the savarna exploitation by commentators and media outlets.
Susie Tharu is an Indian writer, publisher, professor, editor and women's activist. Throughout her career and the founding of several women's activist organizations, Tharu has helped to highlight those issues in India.
Perumal Murugan is an Indian writer, scholar and literary chronicler who writes in Tamil. He has written twelve novels, six collections of short stories, six anthologies of poetry and many of the non-fiction books. Ten of his novels have been translated into English: Seasons of the Palm, which was shortlisted for the Kiriyama Prize in 2005, Current Show, One Part Woman, A Lonely Harvest, Trail by Silence, Poonachi or the Story of a Goat, Resolve, Estuary, Rising Heat, and Pyre He was a professor of Tamil at the Government Arts College in Salem Attur and Namakkal.
Raj Gauthaman is a leading Tamil intellectual who pioneered new approaches to Tamil cultural and literary history studies in the late 20th century. He has authored twenty research works that analyze the development of Tamil culture from ancient to modern periods with a focus on subaltern Dalit perspectives. He has also written three novels and translated Sanskrit works into Tamil. Raj Gauthaman was a part of the core group of writers and thinkers, many of whom were Dalits, which shaped the thinking of the influential journal, Nirapirikai in the early 1990s. He worked in academia before retiring in 2011.
Imayam is an Indian Tamil-language novelist from Chennai, Tamil Nadu, He has seven novels, eight short story collections and a novella to his credit. He is closely associated with the Dravidian Movement and its politics and considered as one of the leading writers from South India. He is the recipient of the honorary Sahitya Akademi Award for his novel Selladha Panam in 2020. He is also the first Tamil writer to receive the Kuvempu Rashtriya Puraskar National Award (2022) for bringing new sensibilites to Tamil literature through his writings. Noting the writer's proclivity to Dravidian ideals, the Tamil Nadu chief minister M.K.Stalin called him "an ideologue donned in black and red". He lauded Imayam calling him a "proactive writer" in the Dravidian movement.
Vijila Chirappad is an Indian Dalit poet who writes in Malayalam.
Rakkiaiah is an Indian Tamil writer, activist, and politician known by the pen name Salma and the nickname Rajathi, and often referred to as Rajathi Salma. Her works have received international acclaim and she is renowned as a sensation in contemporary Tamil literature.
Malathi Maithri is an Indian writer, activist and feminist, who is recognised as a distinguished poet in contemporary Tamil literature. Maithri has been the recipient of the Tirupur Tamizh Sangam Award and the State Award for Poetry by the Government of Puducherry. She is also the founder of a publishing house called Anagu (transl. Woman) which has translated works of Nigerian writer Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie such as Purple Red Poppy and We Should All Be Feminists.