Explore Tamil Literature Through Quality Translations
Tamil is the official language of the Indian State of Tamil Nadu and is spoken by 85
million people in the world. There are sizable Tamil- speaking communities in Sri Lanka,
Singapore, Malaysia, South Africa and Mauritius. There are close to 240,000 Tamil
speakers in the United States, concentrated mostly in California, Texas and New
Jersey. In addition, Tamil is the first Indian language to be officially recognized as a
classical language by the Government of India in 2004.
ENGLISH:
Our aim is to introduce Tamil literature to Tamils and non-Tamils by providing good
translations in English. We believe there is a need to make the rich Tamil literature – its
fiction, poetry and drama – accessible to international readers.
TELUGU:
There is also a sizable population (close to 1.2 million in 2024) of Telugu speakers in the
United States. It is the third most widely spoken Indian language in the US, next to Hindi
and Gujarati. It was the medium of my instruction in high school and college in India. In
2010, I translated Gangai Enge Pokiral?, Jayakanthan’s novel into Telugu as Ganga
Tapassu; this was a sequel to Jayakanthan’s another celebrated novel that Malathi
Chandur (1928- 2013) translated as Konni Smayallo Kondaru Manushulu. Malathi
Chandur wrote the introduction to my book. Thus I began translating Tamil works into
Telugu as well; I started with my late sister’s short stories and, over the course of three
years – from 2017 through 2019, I completed translating all her works – 80 short stories,
one novel, three essays, and one play, into Telugu. The result was three volumes of her
complete works published as Vindhiya Sahitya Sangraham in 2019 and donated to the
Telugu Department of the Emory University, Atlanta, Georgia.
