The Association for Asian Studies announced that Gabbilam: A Dalit Epic, written by Gurram Jashuva (1875-1971) in 1941 and translated recently from the Telugu by Chinnaiah Jangam, is the winner of its 2024 AK Ramanujan Book Prize for Translation. The translator will be awarded a cash prize of $1000 on March 16 at the award ceremony in Seattle, US.
In Gabbilam, published by Yoda Press in India, Jashuva challenges the dominant Sanskrit and Telugu literary sphere by choosing the bat, known as Gabbilam in Telugu and believed to be a bad omen – as it is considered neither a bird nor an animal – to reflect the existential status of untouchables. He subverts the classic Meghaduta, and instead of using swans, parrots, peacocks, and clouds as messengers like Savarnas, he uses the stigmatised bat, which hangs upside down in temple towers, to send his message of suffering to the god Shiva.
Gabbilam presents a Dalit man as the hero and protagonist, perhaps for the first time in the classical verse-epic tradition of Indian poetry, and is one of the earliest texts to highlight the oppression, exclusion, and dehumanisation of untouchables in casteist society. It occupies a pre-eminent position in the Telugu literary sphere, not just for the depiction of Dalit suffering but also for bringing the language of ordinary people into the classical medium.
Belles-Lettres: Writings of Hijab Imtiaz Ali, translated by Sascha A Akhtar (Oxford University Press India) was given an honourable mention in the same category.
This year’s jury comprised professors Azfar Hussain (Grand Valley State University), Timsal Masud (Columbia University) and Srilata Raman (University of Toronto).
The other winners
Bernard S Cohn Prize (First book on South Asia)
The Art of Cloth in Mughal India, Sylvia Houghteling (Princeton University Press
Nullius: The Anthropology of Ownership, Sovereignty, and the Law in India, Kriti Kapila (HAU Books)
Ploughshares and Swords: India’s Nuclear Program in the Global Cold War, Jayita Sarkar (Cornell University Press)
Ananda Kentish Coomaraswamy Prize (for English-language scholarly work on South Asia beyond the first book)
The Vulgarity of Caste: Dalits, Sexuality, and Humanity in Modern India, Shailaja Paik (Stanford University Press)