Revolutionary women writers have made an incredible contribution to Telugu literature and in fact it is a significant addition to Indian literature as well. It has been four decades since women revolutionaries started writing short stories, but except a few most of them are unknown to mainstream literature. Now virasam, (Revolutionary Writers Association) along with other friends took the tedious project of compiling nearly 300 stories written by 53 women writers who wielded/ are wielding gun and pen and led/are leading underground life in the revolutionary movement, over a period of 40 years. B. Anuradha, one of those writers, is the editor. These stories are compiled into 6 volumes under the title Viyyukka. The title is a Gondi term meaning Morning star. It signifies the dandakaranya struggle with more than a half of women representation.
These stories cover a range of subjects – military life of the women in the guerilla army, human relations among the revolutionaries, motherhood and the inner struggle of women revolutionaries, repression and resistance, education among the adivasis, life of children in the war zone of revolutionary struggle, owomen workers’ struggles, middle class women’s woes and their struggles to overcome the patriarchy in the society etc.
Three of the six volumes of Viyyukka were released at Hyderabad recently. The inspiring event caught the attention of many friends on social media. Friends from other states started asking whether they are available in English. As far as we know, only a few have been translated to English.
We decided to publish them in vasanthamegham.com, virasam’s official web magazine. The fortnightly will publish these in a series from this issue onwards. If any new translations are made we will add them to the series. Also we welcome if anybody comes forward to translate these stories.
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