பாமா நூல்கள் · Bama Books

Bama (பாமா), is a Tamil Dalit feminist, committed teacher and novelist. Bama (nom de plume of Faustina Mary Fatima Rani) was born in a Roman Catholic family belonging to the Paraiyar community from Pudhupatti in the then Madras State. Her father, Susairaj was employed in the Indian Army and her mother was named Sebasthiamma. She is the sister of famous Dalit writer Raj Gauthaman. Bama's ancestors were from the Dalit community and worked as agricultural labourers.

Her early literary influences include Tamil writers like Jayakantan, Akhilan, Mani, and Parthasarthy. In college, she read and enjoyed Kahlil Gibran and Rabindranath Tagore. On graduation, she became a schoolteacher for very poor girls, following which she served as a nun for seven years. She chose to take the holy orders to escape caste-based discrimination, and also to further her mission of helping in the advancement of poor Dalit girls.

She rose to fame with her autobiographical novel (1992), which chronicles the joys and sorrows experienced by Dalit Christian women in Tamil Nadu. She subsequently wrote two more novels, (1994) and (2002) along with two collections of short stories: (1996) and (2003). In addition to this she has written twenty short stories.