About Kurinji Publications
I was born in Brahmapur, Odisha, in 1939 and emigrated to the United States in 1975. Growing up in a home where my father was a teacher, playwright, and poet, and a sister, a successful writer of Tamil short stories, I was drawn into the magic world of printed words. At sixteen I published my first short story in a popular children’s magazine, Kannan. At school, I published a humor magazine for children – Kitakitalu- in Telugu, entirely handwritten.
Translating Tamil works into English and Telugu has been my principal hobby for the last 25 years.
My translation project began initially in 1994 with the works of Jayakanthan. By 1996, I had translated two novels and ten of my favorite short stories.
I met with Jayakanthan at his home in Chennai in April, 1997 and obtained his formal permission to translate his works and publish them in the US under my banner, Kurinji Publications.
I discussed my translation efforts with Prof. George Hart of the South Asian Department at University of California Berkeley (UCB). He posted a couple of my short stories in a website under the title, Modern Tamil.
Then, in May, 2000, I came to know Jayakanthan was visiting the US to participate in a Tamil Literary Conference in Miami, Florida. Mr. S. Muruganandam from New Jersey, an organizer of that conference and a friend of Prof. Hart’s got in touch with me. He (Mr. Muruganandam) wanted to bring out a collection of the author’s short stories to coincide with his visit. He and I collaborated on a new book and Mr. Muruganandam published The Trial by Fire under his banner, Chindanai Vattam.
The idea of website www.kurinjipubs.com came up in in 2004/2005 when, after my retirement, I was fully devoted to translating works by other Tamil writers. The website was established with the help of my daughter Anupama. As my next project, I translated my late sister’s short stories into English. My brother Seenu and niece Divya augmented the website with new features by providing links to my late sister’s and father’s works. Seenu Continues to enhance the site.
Tamil is one of the longest-surviving classical languages in the world. Prof. A.K. Ramanujan described it as “the only language of contemporary India which is recognizably continuous with a classical past.” The variety and quality of classical Tamil literature has led to its being described as “one of the great classical traditions and literatures of the world. Recorded Tamil literature has been documented for over 2000 years.
Tamil has been formally accorded the status of a classical language by the Government of India on September 18, 2004. In this connection, we urge readers to the link below, where you can read Prof. George Hart’s letter on the status of Tamil as a classical language:
