Omprakash Valmiki describes his life as an untouchable, or Dalit, in the newly independent India of the 1950s. "Joothan" refers to scraps of food left on a plate, destined for the garbage or animals. India's untouchables have been forced to accept and eat joothan for centuries, and the word encapsulates the pain, humiliation, and poverty of a community forced to live at the bottom of India's social pyramid. Although untouchability was abolished in 1949, Dalits continued to face discrimination, economic deprivation, violence, and ridicule. Valmiki shares his heroic struggle to survive a preordained life of perpetual physical and mental persecution and his transformation into a speaking subject under the influence of the great Dalit political leader, B. R. Ambedkar. A document of the long-silenced and long-denied sufferings of the Dalits, Joothan is a major contribution to the archives of Dalit history and a manifesto for the revolutionary transformation of society and human consciousness.

奧姆普拉卡什•瓦爾密齊1950年生於印度，齣身卑賤，是印度“賤民”群體的一員。但他依然使用“瓦爾密齊”這一令他終身恥辱的名字，以此來反抗種姓製度。他的作品被譽為印地語達利特文學的裏程碑，先後一共創作瞭一部自傳體小說、三部短篇小說集、四部詩集、六十多部劇本、兩部文學批評集以及兩部翻譯作品，均受到瞭讀者的熱烈歡迎，並産生瞭廣泛的影響。其中最具震撼力和影響力的當屬自傳體小說《剩飯》。