Dr D Gnanasekaran

Translating Tamil Poetry Dr D Gnanasekaran

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.