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Disputing Borders on the LiteraryTerrain: Translations and the Makingof the Genre of ‘Partition Literature’AbstractThe present paper examines the claim, made on behalf of‘partition literature’, that it is a more comprehensive accountof partition than social-historical accounts. That it is nonpartisanand humane. Through the readings of Alok Bhalla’sthree volume collection titled Stories about the partition ofIndia (1994), it is shown how in the process of translation andgenre-formation, certain texts are ‘communalized’ and rejectedor accepted after constructing an elaborate structure ofjustification. The paper shows how literature too partakes inthe symbolic drawing of nation and community boundaries.Literary genres take shape not only to sift literature but toinfluence the social, political and other realms as well.Nikhila H.In recent years, History has fallen into disfavor in studies ofPartition 1 as the discipline that has suppressed the trauma of Partitionin constructing the triumphalist narrative of the nation-state. Instead,these studies take recourse to myth, memory and literature to drawattention to “the other face of freedom”. 2 The assumption here is thatmyth, memory and literature bring people together while History issaid to be divisive. While the universalist and liberal-humanistclaims of British Literature have been questioned by PostcolonialStudies, Literature in general continues to be seen as the repositoryof universal human values. The literary presentation of Partition hascome to be seen as a more ‘comprehensive’ account of Partition thanTranslation Today Vol. 3 Nos. 1 & 2, 2006 © CIIL 2006