News from India

Those of you who've read the 2017 guest post on this blog by Indian translator Prabha Sridevan (see photo), and especially the several of you who've sent appreciative comments, will be pleased to learn that she's just won a prestigious literary award. (To retrieve the post, enter Prabha in the Search box on the right.)

"At the valedictory of the 3rd edition of the three day literary fest ‘Valley of Words’, held at Dehradun [in the foothills of the Himalayas] on Nov. 17, Prabha Sridevan, retired judge, Madras High Court, won an award under the category ‘Translation from regional language [Tamil] into English’ for her book ‘Echoes of the Veena’.
"Prabha who retired in 2010 has been actively translating books since 2012.
"Her first book, ‘Seeing in the Dark’, a translation of late writer Choodamani’s short stories, was published by Oxford University Press in 2015.
"Her second book ‘Echoes of the Veena’, which was a translation of 18 stories written by the same author, was published by Ratna Sagar P. Ltd in July 2018.
"She has also translated the short stories of Seeta Ravi, Vaasanthi and Kavitha Swarnavalli. Stories from her translated works have been turned into plays by the Madras Players [in Chennai]. Her third book which is a translation of Thoppil Mohammed Meeran’s short stories will come out next year."

It was the sensitivity of the stories in Seeing in the Dark that first led me to get in touch with her.

This post is inserted not only as a tribute to Prabha but also to draw attention once again to the teeming translation activity in India, fed by its many languages including English. Western academics seem more interested in Sir William Jones (1746-1794) than in present-day Indian translators.

Sources
Mylapore Times, November 22, 2019.

R. Chudamani. Seeing in the Dark. Translated from Tamil by Prabha Sridevan. New Delhi: Oxford University Press India, 2015. Available from Amazon and other booksellers. A collection of short stories with translator's introduction, it was adapted for the stage and performed by The Madras Players in 2016.

R. Chudamani. Echoes of the Veena and Other Stories. Translated from Tamil by Prabha Sridevan.
Delhi: Ratna, 2018. 229 p. Available from Amazon and other booksellers. A collection of short stories with translator's introduction,