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Contributor

Christi A. Merrill

Portrait of writer and translator Christi A. Merrill (right)
Contributor

Christi A. Merrill

Christi A Merrill is associate professor of South Asian literature and postcolonial theory in the Departments of Comparative Literature and Asian Languages and Cultures at the University of Michigan, and author of Riddles of Belonging: India in Translation and other Tales of Possession (Fordham University Press, 2009). Her translations of the oral-based stories of Rajasthani writer Vijaydan Detha, Chouboli and Other Stories, were copublished by Katha (New Delhi) and Fordham University Press (New York) and won the 2012 A. K. Ramanujan Award for translation from the Association of Asian Studies. She spent the 2013-14 school year in India on an NEH/AIIS senior fellowship researching the work of Kausalya Baisantry and other Dalit writers for the book-in-progress Genres of Real Life: Mediating Stories of Injustice Across Languages.

Articles by Christi A. Merrill

Beyond “Untouchability”: Dalit Literature in Hindi
By Laura Brueck & Christi A. Merrill
Dalit literature represents some of the most meaningful, socially engaged narrative voices in India today.
Our Village
By Mohan Das Namishray
It would be difficult to find a single man whose back had not been scarred by the whip of the thakur or his agents.
Translated from Hindi by Laura Brueck & Christi A. Merrill
from “Doubly Cursed”
By Kausalya Baisantry
There were a few people in our basti who couldn’t bear our improved circumstances.
Translated from Hindi by Christi A. Merrill
What Is a Translator’s True Calling?
By Christi A. Merrill
My encounter with Vijay Dan Detha has made me realize that if we refuse to recognize the importance of these literary contributions because they are not deemed absolutely original, we risk losing much more.
A True Calling
By Vijay Dan Detha
Like mosquitoes, the courtiers didn't need to find any excuse to bite.
Translated from Rajasthani by Christi A. Merrill & Kailash Kabir
Untold Hitlers
By Vijay Dan Detha
The dry belly of the earth became green with their wheat and fennel, mustard, cumin, and fenugreek.
Translated from Rajasthani by Christi A. Merrill & Kailash Kabir