Kakka: a Dalit novel

Kakka-the novel that turned Telegu literature on its head, Vemula Yellaiah’s 2000 debut is a stylistic Cirque-du-Soleil act. Boy and body politic come of age together in Kakka-stark, minimalist realism meets the symphonic forms and registers of fantasy. A storytelling triumph, in particular Dalit, and at large, the novel is a pioneering record of slavery’s myriad manifestations, and of the productive work Madigas render unto the landlords. Even as their daily inter-caste encounter is described as never before by Yellaiah-never before has the marginalization of a Dalit within his Dalit kinships been written about as in Kakka. Eponymous hero and reader alike grow into their cast through one after another outcast(e). K. Purushotham and Gita Ramaswamy’s sparse translation is as unapologetic as its source, and as exceptionally beautiful.