Mahasweta Devi is one of the contemporary Bengali writers whose literary expressions gave voice to the silent sufferings of the subalterns in the post-colonial socio-political milieu. She is a socially committed writer who raises her voice against the in humanistic corrupt socio- political practices in the contemporary Indian scenario.
In a six-decade literary hurtle, she authored over 120 books, comprising 20 collections of short stories and around 100 novels, and contributed innumerable articles and columns to newspapers and magazines, a large number of them woven around tribal life.
“Writing is an activism for me,” she once said to a query on whether her identity as a writer overshadowed her image as a social activist. Adopting a simple style laced with colloquial words and expressions, Mahasweta blended oral histories with contemporary events to portray the sufferings of the tribals in the hands of upper-caste....