Draupadi by Mahasweta Devi
Translation Project: The mythological character of Draupadi is reinvented to produce a counter-narrative by deploying the female body and sexuality as the locus of resistance. While translating this piece written by Mahasweta Devi, Gayatri Spivak Chakraborty may have been influenced by her own subaltern discourse in her groundbreaking essay, Can a Subaltern Speak? In her essay, Spivak substantiates her answer to the question using Marxist theory and Derrida’s deconstructionist methods. Spivak’s essay challenges the notion of colonial subject and exemplifies the boundaries of the capability of Western discourse, in order to interrelate with incongruent cultures. Spivak justifies the fact that this project is destined to fail, not because the subaltern cannot speak words or produce sentences. The subaltern cannot speak because her speech lacks authority, and it is not heard or accepted politically and socially. In the translator’s forewords, she declares, that it appears to her tha