Sundara Ramaswamy

Sundara Ramaswamy (1931-2005) was one of the most versatile and innovative of Tamil writers. A great modernist and a dazzling stylist, he wrote in many genres-poetry, novel, short story, play, personal essay and literary criticism-making real interventions in Tamil writing. Each of his three novels-Oru Puliamaratthin Kadhai (published in Penguin Classics as Tamarind History), JJ: Sila Kuripuggal (published in Penguin Classics as JJ: Some Jottings) and Kuzhandaigal, Pengal, Aangal (published in Penguin Classics as Children, Women, Men)-is recognized as path-breaking, and he also edited and published a notable literary magazine,Kalachuvadu, which has become a forum for new writing and literary debate.


A.R. Venkatachalapathy (b. 1967) studied in Chennai and took his PhD in history from the Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. Now professor at the Madras Institute of Development Studies, Chennai, Chalapathy has taught at universities in Tirunelveli, Chennai and Chicago, and has held research assignments at Paris, Cambridge and Harvard. He has published widely on the social, cultural, and intellectual history of colonial Tamilnadu, both in Tamil and in English. His publications include In Those Days There Was No Coffee: Writings in Cultural History, The Province of the Book: Scholars, Scribes, and Scribblers in Colonial Tamilandu, a translation of Sundara Ramaswamy's JJ: Some Jottings, as well as the edited volumes Chennai, Not Madras, and In the Tracks of the Mahatma: The Making of a Documentary. He has also edited two anthologies of Tamil Sangam poetry, translated by M.L. Thangappa-Love Stands Alone: Selections from Tamil Sangam Poetry and Red Lilies and Frightened Birds: Muttollayiram.