Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak: Biography, Facts and Career

Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak (; born 24 February 1942) is an Indian literary theorist and feminist critic. She is a professor at Columbia University and a founding member of Columbia's Institute for Comparative Literature and Society. Considered as one of the most influential postcolonial intellectuals, Spivak is best known for her essay "Can the Subaltern Speak?" and her translation of and introduction to Jacques Derrida's De la grammatologie. She has also translated many works of Mahasweta Devi into English with critical notes on Devi's life and writing style, notably Imaginary Maps and Breast Stories. Spivak was awarded the 2012 Kyoto Prize in Arts and Philosophy for "speaking for the humanities against intellectual colonialism in relation to the globalized world." In 2013, she received the Padma Bhushan, the third-highest civilian award in India. In 2025, Spivak received the Holberg Prize for "her groundbreaking work in the fields of literary theory and philosophy." Although often associated with postcolonialism, Spivak has stated her separation from the discipline in her book A Critique of Postcolonial Reason (1999), a position she maintained in a 2021 essay titled "How the Heritage of Postcolonial Studies Thinks Colonialism Today", published in Janus Unbound: Journal of Critical Studies.

Quick facts about Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak

• Full name: Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak
• Born: 1942-02-24
• Nationality: India
• Known as: Author
• Wikidata ID: Q240851

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