"It was a wonderful experience interacting with you and appreciate the way you have planned and executed the whole publication process within the agreed timelines.”
Subrat SaurabhAuthor of Kuch Woh Pal
The contents of this book fall under two sections. Section-I consists of three exhaustive chapters, one in English and two in Tamil, dealing with all aspects of the Art of Translation and also providing an in-depth analysis of the problems of translating texts from Tamil into English in general and poetry in particular. These chapters form a strong theoretical basis for Section-II. Section-II contains select poems of five representative poets of the modern era, namely Na. Pichamurthy, Sirpi Balasubramaniam, Abdul Rahman, Manushya Puthiran and Tamizhachi Thangapandian, and their corresponding translations in English by me with a view to providing a practice-oriented approach to the process of translating Tamil poetry into English. In addition, each poet is briefly introduced highlighting the salient features of their poetry. In my approach, I have tried to be very close to the original texts literally and idiomatically as far as possible, and so consciously avoided more sophistication in translating them. The immediate purpose of this book is to offer certain practical insights into the various aspects of translation and help teachers and students of literature to grasp with ease the nuances of translation through model exercises. At the same time I fondly hope that this book will kindle the interest of anyone who has a natural bent for translation.
Dr. D. GNANASEKARAN
Dr. D. Gnanasekaran, MA, M. Phil. (Stylistics), PhD (ELT), PGDJMC (IGNOU - Gold Medalist) is former Professor & Head, Dept. of English, K. M. Govt. Institute for PG Studies & Research, Puducherry. He has got forty years’ collegiate teaching and research experience and is a bilingual writer, poet, short story writer, critic, translator, broadcaster, reviewer, and communication skills consultant. He has authored Indian Writing in English Today: Insights for the Future (2014), New Research Articles Across Literatures (2019), Stylistics of Poetry: A Practical Approach (2018), Are You My Dad? And Other Stories (2018) and A Divine Visit and The Human Touch: A Collection of Short Stories (2019). His English translations include The Madcap (2015) (Piththan, a collection of Tamil poems by Kavikko Abdul Rahman, The Girl My Age (2017)) (Enchottupen, a collection of Tamil poems by Tamizhachi) and Dr. T. Ramanayagam: A Biography (2017) besides numerous translations of works in various genres published in journals and magazines. Seventy seven of his research articles have been published in reputed journals as well as edited critical anthologies.
