Bama (born 14 March 1958), also known as Bama Faustina Soosairaj, is a Tamil Dalit feminist, teacher and novelist. Her

autobiographical novel An autobiographical novel, also known as an autobiographical fiction, fictional autobiography, or autobiographical fiction novel, is a type of novel which uses autofiction techniques, or the merging of autobiographical and fictive elements. The ...

'' Karukku'' (1992) chronicles the joys and sorrows experienced by

Dalit Dalit ( from meaning "broken/scattered") is a term used for untouchables and outcasts, who represented the lowest stratum of the castes in the Indian subcontinent. They are also called Harijans. Dalits were excluded from the fourfold var ...

Christian A Christian () is a person who follows or adheres to Christianity, a Monotheism, monotheistic Abrahamic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus in Christianity, Jesus Christ. Christians form the largest religious community in the wo ...

women in

Tamil Nadu Tamil Nadu (; , TN) is the southernmost States and union territories of India, state of India. The List of states and union territories of India by area, tenth largest Indian state by area and the List of states and union territories of Indi ...

. 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.

Early life and family

Bama was born on 14 March 1958 as Faustina Mary Fatima Rani in a

Roman Catholic The Catholic Church (), also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.27 to 1.41 billion baptized Catholics worldwide as of 2025. It is among the world's oldest and largest international institut ...

family belonging to the

Paraiyar Paraiyar, Parayar or Maraiyar (formerly anglicised as Pariah and Paree) is a caste group found in the Indian states of Tamil Nadu and Kerala and in Sri Lanka. Etymology Robert Caldwell, a nineteenth-century missionary and grammarian who w ...

community from Puthupatti in the then Madras State. Later she accepted 'Bama' as her pen name. Her father, Susairaj was employed in the Indian Army and her mother was named Sebasthiamma. She is the sister of famous Dalit writer Raj Gauthaman. Bama's grandfather had converted from Hinduism to Christianity. Bama's ancestors were from the Dalit community and worked as agricultural labourers. Bama had her early education in her village. Her early literary influences include Tamil writers like Jayakantan, Akhilan, Mani, and Parthasarthy. In college, she read and enjoyed

Kahlil Gibran Gibran Khalil Gibran (January 6, 1883 – April 10, 1931), usually referred to in English as Kahlil Gibran, was a Lebanese-American writer, poet and Visual arts, visual artist; he was also considered a philosopher, although he himself reject ...

and

Rabindranath Tagore Rabindranath Thakur (; anglicised as Rabindranath Tagore ; 7 May 1861 – 7 August 1941) was a Bengalis, Bengali polymath who worked as a poet, writer, playwright, composer, philosopher, social reformer, and painter of the Bengal Renai ...

. On graduation, she became a schoolteacher for very poor girls, following which she served as a nun for seven years. She chose to take the holy orders to escape caste-based discrimination, and also to further her mission of helping in the advancement of poor Dalit girls.

Writing career

After joining the nunnery, Bama found out that there was a separate training centre for Dalit Catholics. Angered by the poor conditions of the Dalit Catholic training centre, she left the nunnery after seven years. She finished her studies and joined as a teacher at a Catholic Christian school. During her teaching experience, she found out that the Catholic nuns oppressed the Dalit children and teachers. This further added to her disdain towards the convent. This was when she began writing. With the encouragement of a friend, she wrote on her childhood experiences. These experiences formed the basis for her first novel, ''Karukku'' published in 1992. Bama wrote the novel in a dialect of Tamil that is unique to her community. She said she faced flak regarding the choice of her language from the members of the upper caste. That's when she decided to use the same dialect in all the novels subsequently. When the novel was published, Bama was ostracised from her village for portraying it in poor light and was not allowed to enter it for the next seven months. ''Karukku'' was, however, critically acclaimed and won the Crossword Book Award in 2000. It has since become a textbook in various courses like Marginal Literature, Literature in Translation, Autobiography, Feminist Literature, Subaltern Literature and Dalit Literature, across many universities. Bama followed it with ''Sangati'' and ''Kusumbukkaran''. Bama got a loan and set up a school for Dalit children in Uttiramerur. Bama's ''Karukku'' has been translated to English and ''Kusumbukkaran'' and ''Sangati'' to French. ''Sangati'' has also been translated to Telugu by Dalit writer and activist Joopaka Subhadra. Bama recently published an essay in Single By Choice: happily unmarried women!, a collection of 13 essays by unmarried women in India talking about their singlehood. In her essay she talks about her choice of being a single professional Dalit woman in India. While she did grow up with dreams of marrying a man and having a girl child, she gradually chose being a single woman because according to her "the institution and structure of marriage and family as they exist today, are not woman-friendly at all." She also says, "I liked being myself; I didn’t want to lose my self, my being, my freedom and identity, for anyone." However, her life choices have not been without its own set of challenges. She talks about how she has had to experience insults and suspicion for choosing to be single.

Themes

Bama's novels focus on caste and gender discrimination. They portray caste-discrimination practised in Christianity and Hinduism. In an interview, Bama has said that she writes because she considers it her duty and responsibility to share the experiences of her people. In addition, she also finds the act of writing cathartic and liberating. For her, "writing itself is a political act", and a "weapon" that she uses to continuously fight against the dehumanizing caste practice.

Bibliography

* ''Karukku'' (1992; 2nd ed. with postscript, 2012) * ''Sangati'' (1994) * ''Kusumbukkaran'' (1996) * ''Vanmam'' (2002) * ''Oru Tattavum Erumaiyum'' (2003) *Kondattam (2009) *All of her works have been translated into English and French.

References

External links