Autobiographical writing has been a central component of the Dalit movement in India as they advocate across regions and languages for the human rights of the downtrodden. Whereas activists and critics such as S. Anand have suggested that the success of this movement has depended in part on translation both within India and transnationally, Christi Merrill takes this insight one step further by asking what the Dalit movement gains by having first-person narratives circulate in translation, and how the very terms of human rights have been reconfigured by these exchanges. A translator herself, she contends that Dalit first-person narratives posit a different relationship between self and society than is ordinarily assumed in the reception of autobiography in English, and so put productive pressure on our generic expectations as readers and producers of these narratives.

Christi Merrill is Associate Professor in Asian Languages and Cultures and in Comparative Literature.