ABSTRACT
'Subaltern' would characterize a literary genre of which A Life Less Ordinary would be a prime example. The 'subalternity' of Baby Halder's story has virtually disappeared, and the subaltern literary genre under which it is subsumed appears to be an empty shell. The celebrity of the concept of subaltern is associated in India with a collective of Indian historians who wanted to break with the elitism of dominant historiography and to re-establish the people in its agency, in its capacity for initiative. The particular, unique, incomparable and 'subaltern' trajectory of Baby Halder refers, in point of fact, to the fragmentation via the heroization of the 'piece of luck', of an individual destiny. It refers implicitly to the recognition of irreducible differences and of homogenous and exclusive identities, since female Dalit writing is not made an issue. And, it also refers more widely to a decontextualizing bias, given the historicity of female autobiographies.
