Book Review: Translation initiative takes Tamil literature to the world

Since 2017, the Tamil Nadu Textbook and Educational Services Corporation has established itself as an enabler in India’s publishing landscape with the express aim of “promoting the literature and culture of Tamil Nadu”. The titles are: ‘In Defiance, Our Stories: Short Fiction by Dalit Writers’ translated by Malini Seshadri and V. Ramakrishnan ; Hephzibah Jesudasan’s novel ‘Putham Veedu’ translated by G. Geetha as ‘Putham House’ ; Thoppil Mohamed Meeran’s short fiction translated by Prabha Sridevan as ‘Meeran’s Stories’; select writings from Tamil scholar U. Saminatha Iyer’s ‘Kandathum Kettathum’, translated by Prabha Sridevan and Pradeep Chakravarthy as ‘Essays of U.Ve.Sa: The man who revived ancient Tamil literature’ ; and a Penguin Classics reprint of R. Parthasarathy’s translation in verse of the Tamil epic Cilappatikaram, subtitled ‘The Tale of an Anklet’. The TNTB&ESC’s mission statement says its objective in presenting fiction and non-fiction from “one of the world’s oldest literary traditions, which includes one of the most sophisticated pre-modern poetic theories” is not only to make Tamil writing accessible in translation to a global readership but also to acquaint a generation of Tamils, who may not read or write the language, with “Tamil antiquity, tradition and contemporaneity”. Ramakrishna and Malini Seshadri, ‘Katha Vilasam: The Story Within’ showcases for a wider readership the 50 Tamil writers whose short stories Ramakrishnan has suffused with his own special brand of storytelling. ‘Essays of U.Ve.Sa: The man who revived ancient Tamil literature’, translated by Prabha Sridevan and Pradeep Chakravarthy, and with a Foreword by Perumal Murugan, is a cross section of U.Ve.Sa’s anecdotal writings, and includes “oral tales, autobiographical sketches, histories of places, life-stories and the author’s encounters with music and poetry”.