Bitter Soil

Book excerpt: Bitter Soil contains four of her most powerful stories Salt , Seed , The Witch and Little Ones all set in Palamau, the tribal-intensive region she has traveled extensively. As she says in her introduction, My Palamau is a mirror of India. These harsh, hardhitting pieces are, in her own words, among the most important of her prolific writing career. Written in the eighties, they resonate with anger against the exploitation she witnessed firsthand, and the complacent hypocrisy of the upper castes and classes. Mahasweta Devi is one of India s foremost writers. Her powerful fiction has won her recognition in the form of the Sahitya Akademi (1979), Jnanpith (1996) and Ramon Magsaysay (1996) awards, the title of Officier del Ordre Des Arts Et Des Lettres (2003) and the Nonino Prize (2005) amongst several other literary honours. She was also awarded the Padmasree in 1986, for her activist work among dispossessed tribal communities. Ipsita Chanda is a translator who also teaches Comparative Literature in Jadavpur University. Ipsita Chanda, the translator, teches Comparative Literature at Jadavpur University, Calcutta.