Paratexts and the Voice of the Subaltern: A Comparative Study of the Malayalam Novel Kocharethi and its English Translation Kocharethi: The Araya Woman

Authors

  • Meenu Sabu Department of English, Pondicherry University, India Author

Keywords:

paratext, representation, subaltern, translation

Abstract

Catherine Thankamma translated the Malayalam novel Kocharethi by Narayan into English. The present research article is a comparative study of the paratexts associated with the Malayalam and the English version. The paratextual elements which contribute to the production, transmission and reception of the subaltern text is analysed here. The Malayalam novel Kocharethi by Narayan, published in 1998, is the first novel in the language by a tribal writer. Through the lives of the protagonists, Kunjipennu and Kochuraman, the novel depicts the life and struggles of the Mala Araya community in the hilly regions of central Kerala. The narrative opens with the Araya woman Kunjipennu’s falling in love with a ‘vaidyan’ (traditional medical practitioner) named Kochuraman. Their marriage in defiance of the existing norms of the Araya tribe and their life together are narrated against the backdrop of the changing patterns of the community’s fight for sustenance.

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References

Batchelor, Kathryn. Translation and Paratexts. Routledge, 2018.

Genette, Gerard. Paratexts Thresholds of Interpretation. Translated by Jane E Lewin, Cambridge UP, 1997.

Narayan. Kocharethi. 1998. Novel Carnival, series editors, K. P. Appan and E. V. Ramakrishnan, D C Books, 2004.

Narayan.. Kocharethi: The Araya Woman. Translated by Catherine Thankamma, Oxford UP, 2011.

Sathe, Putul. “Notes Towards Reading Adivasi Literature.” Trivedi and Burke, pp. 79-94.

Srivastava, Neelam. “A Multiple Addressivity: Indian Subaltern Autobiographies and theRole of Translation.” Indian Literature and the World: Multiligualism, Translation and the Public Sphere, edited by Rossella Ciocca and Neelam Srivastava, Palgrave Macmillan, 2017, pp. 105-134.

Thankamma, Catherine. “Othered in One’s Own Land: Adivasi Writing in Kerala.” Contemporary Adivasi Writings in India: Shifting Paradigms, edited by Rajasree Trivedi and Rupalee Burke, Notion Press, 2018, pp. 32-45.

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Published

2025-04-26

Issue

No. 27 (2021): ISHAL PAITHRKAM

Section

Articles

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Copyright (c) 2025 ISHAL PAITHRKAM

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