Imaginary Maps; Three Stories by Mahasweta Devi

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Weaving history, myth and current political realities, these three stories by noted Bengali writer Mahasweta Devi explore troubling motifs in contemporary Indian life through the figures and narratives of the indigenous tribes of India. Both delicate and violent, Devi’s stories map the experiences of the “tribals” and tribal life under decolonization. Whether she is writing about ecological catastrophe, the connections between local elites and international capitalism, gender and resistance, or tribal agony, Ms. Devi always links the specific fate of tribals in India to that of marginalized peoples everywhere. Imaginary Maps includes a translator’s preface, appendix, and interview with the author by Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak. Spivak explodes the scope and impact of these stories, connecting the necessary “power lines” not only between local and international structures of power (patriarchy, nationalism, late capitalism), but tracing them to the very door of the university