In this classic work, Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, one of the leading and most influential cultural theorists working today, analyzes the relationship between language, women and culture in both Western and non-Western contexts.

Foreword by Colin MacCabe. Author’s Note. One: Literature 1. The Letter as Cutting Edge 2. Finding Feminist Readings: Dante-Yeats 3. Unmaking and Making in To the Lighthouse 4. Sex and History in The Prelude (1805): Books Nine to Thirteen 5. Feminism and Critical Theory Two: Into the World 6. Reading the Worlds: Literary Studies in the Eighties 7. Explanation and Culture: Marginalia 8. The Politics of Interpretations 9. French Feminism in an International Frame 10. Scattered Speculations on the Questions of Value Three: Entering the Third World 11. "Draupadi" by Mahasweta Devi 12. Subaltern Studies: Deconstructing Historiography 13. "Breast-Giver" by Mahasweta Devi 14. A Literary Representation of the Subaltern: A Woman’s Text from the Third World. Notes