Volume VI Special Issue VI September 2026

Name of Author : Roopa Jose

Title of the paper : Writing the Hills from Within: Land, Ritual and Adivasi Self Representation in Narayans Kocharethi: The Araya Woman

Abstract: Kocharethi The Araya Woman, by Narayan, translated by Catherine Thankamma, is the first novel by an Adivasi writer from Kerala. Set among the Malayarayar community of the Idukki and Kottayam hills, it follows Kunjipennu and Kochuraman, though its real subject is the community its deities and healers, its farming seasons, its loss of land to traders and moneylenders, and the changes brought by missionaries and schooling. This paper argues that Narayan writes deliberately against the way Adivasis have long been pictured in colonial records and mainstream Malayalam fiction, and that the novels loose, episodic shape is part of that argument no single hero, no tightly built plot, only the rhythm of Araya life, which quietly refuses the outsiders demand for spectacle. Drawing on close reading of the novel and its accompanying paratexts, the paper situates Kocharethi within wider debates on Adivasi self representation, where authorship becomes a claim on land, memory and image. It also compares the Malayalam text with Thankammas translation to ask what survives, and what changes, when an Adivasi voice enters English.

Keywords : Adivasi Literature; Malayarayar; Self Representation; Land and Dispossession; Translation

DOI :

Page Number : 264-268