Feminist Vision or Treason Against Men Kashibai Kanitkar and the Engendering of Marathi Literature

Kashibai Kanitkar (1861?1948), was the first major woman writer in Marathi. She was largely self-taught and keenly conscious of the benefits of women?s education. She promoted this and other emancipatory measures for women through her prolific and wide-ranging writings?both fiction and non-fiction?deploying them as a mode of social reform discourse. The present book includes translations of most of Kashibai?s works: both her novels (in abridged form); a review of Pandita Ramabai?s American travelogue; long extracts from Kashibai?s episodic autobiographical narrative as well as from her biography of India?s first woman doctor, Dr. Anandibai Joshee; and an article tracing the history of women?s education in Maharashtra. A comprehensive introduction by Meera Kosambi contextualizes these texts and situates Kashibai within her social and literary milieu. Kashibai, Professor Kosambi shows, was a pioneering writer who created a new paradigm in Marathi literature. It was she who enabled Maharashtra?s rich tradition of women?s writings by foundational contributions which ?engendered? Marathi literature.