TRANSLATING THE SUBALTERN’ : A STUDY OF SARA JOSEPH'S RAMAYANA STORIES AUTHOR

Gayatri Spivak, in her essay Can the Subaltern Speak? raises doubts about the recovery ofthe subaltern voice which can, in her words, 'know and speak itself. ''The Ramayana is aliving, evolving tradition which has given rise to a multiplicity of innovative retellings. Oneof such retellings is Sara Joseph's ' Ramayana Stories', originally written in Malayalam andtranslated into English.The focus in this paper is on three stories written by Sara Joseph based on three differentcharacters from the Ramayana, namely Sita, Sambooka and Soorpanakha. They arecharacters who are generally seen as marginalized. Undoubtedly, the subaltern becomes thesubject in these stories, providing, in its own delicate manner, an answer to the question 'Can the subaltern speak'? The paper is also an attempt to look at translation as a politicalact which is able to make sense of the counter narrative to the " historical silencing of thesubaltern."