Dark Interiors: Essays on Caste and Dalit Culture

by Raj Gauthaman, S. Theodore Baskaran (Translator)

‘Except women and dalits, I do not think there is anyone discriminated at birth.’

These words give an idea of Raj Gauthaman’s succinct and provocative critique, translated into English for the first time by Theodore Baskaran. The essays engage with dalit liberation politics, the relationship of dalits with Tamil history and the many strands that constitute radical dalit culture. Gauthaman discusses dalit history and what the progress of non-brahmin politics in Tamil Nadu has meant for dalits.

This analysis of the alternative cultural expressions of dalits, politics, art and literature comes from essays written in 1992–2002, which remain perennial and startlingly new. The author’s discussion of Iyothee Thass Pandithar—who preceded Ambedkar by 50 years—of Ambedkar and Periyar, of postmodernism and Subaltern Studies, provides a new cultural history that tells us about dalit assertion today.

224 pages, Hardcover

Published January 1, 2021

About the author

Raj Gauthaman was an Indian Tamil intellectual who pioneered new approaches to Tamil cultural and literary history studies in the late 20th century. He authored 20 research works that analyse the development of Tamil culture from ancient to modern periods with a focus on subaltern Dalit perspectives. He also wrote 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.
Raj Gauthaman was awarded the Pudhumaipithan Ninaivu Virudhu by the Canadian and American Tamil diaspora in 2018. He is being awarded the Vishnupuram Award for 2018 by the Vishnupuram Ilakkiya Vattam for his significant contributions to the Tamil literary and cultural domain.