Excavation of History and Narration of Subaltern Orality in the Short Stories of Mahasweta Devi

Abstract

In 1979 Mahasweta Devi had written and published a short story collection in Bengali language. Later, the short story collection had been translated into English by Ipsita Chanda and published in 1998 under the title of Bitter Soil. This paper studies two short stories from this collection of translation, which entitled as Little Ones and Salt respectively. Mahasweta Devi made tremendous contribution to literary, social and cultural studies in this country and she always believed that the real history is made by the ordinary people as she is also a political activist. Both these short stories represent the history of post independent India. Mahasweta Devi’s empirical research into oral history and haunting tales of exploitation and struggle as it lives in the cultures and reminiscences of tribal communities is highly relevant today.