About the Book:

A.K. Ramanujan has been recognized as one of the world's most profound scholars of South Asian Language and culture. His celebrated translations from classical Tamil and medieval Kannada, and his prize-winning collection of poems are brought together for the first time in this classic edition.

The omnibus includes four volumes of his verse in English. The Striders, Relations, Second Sight, The Black Hen, as well as posthumous editions of his collected and uncollected poems. These are followed by his translations of ancient Tamil and medieval Kannada poetry. The love poems in The Interior Landscape, as well as Poems of Love and War, come from Tamil texts of the first three centuries AD. Hymns for the Drowning is the selection of poems by Nammalvar, the revered saint-poet of the ninth century, whose devotional hymns addressed to Vishnu are among the earliest bhakti texts. The widely known vacanas in Speaking of Siva, by four major saints of the later bhakti protest movement of the tenth century AD, have influenced writers, artists, dancers, and composers throughout the world.

Also included in this collection is an interview by Chirantan Kulshrestha and an essay by A.K. Ramanujan on translating Tamil poetry, both of which add significantly to our understanding of the connectedness between the translations and his poems. The works in the volume have individually made a unique contribution. Brought together, they allow us to see the continuity and range of the whole tradition, which Ramanujan has helped to illuminate and define.

The Oxford India Ramanujan is a collector's item for Ramanujan aficionados as well as for all those interested in Indian English poetry and literature in translation.

About the Author:

A.K. Ramanujan (1929-1993) was born into a Tamil Family in Kannada-speaking Mysore City. He was educated in English at the University of Mysore, and at Indiana University. As William E. Colvin Professor at the University of Chicago, his academic interests became increasingly interdisciplinary. He translated from classical Tamil and Medieval Kannada. He wrote experimental poetry in Kannada (Hokkulalli Huvilla, Kuntobille, Mattu Ittara Padyagalu); he gathered folktales from all over India (Folktales from India, The Flowering Tree); he translated fiction from English into Kannada (Haladi Meenu), from Kannada into English (Samskara); and wrote an original novella in Kannada (Mattobbana Atmakate). His achievements as a bilingual poet and as a trilingual translator won him a Padma Shri in 1976 and a MacArthus Foundation Fellowship in 1983. He was also elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1990 and won a posthumous prize from the Sahitya Akademi for poetry in English.

Molly Daniels- Ramanujan (editor) holds a Ph.D. from the University of Chicago's Committee on Social Thought. She is the author of three works of fiction, and two books of criticism, including The Prophetic Novel (1991).

Acknowledgements

An A.K. Ramanujan Story

PART I: POEMS

Interview by Chirantan Kulshrestha
The Striders (1966)
Relations (1971)
Second Sight(1986)
The Black Hen in Collected Poems(1995)
Uncollected Poems (2001)

PART II: TRANSLATIONS
CLASSICAL TAMIL (AD 50 TO AD 300)

On Translating a Tamil Poem
The Interior Landscape (1967)
Poems of Love and War (1985)

TAMIL AND KANNADA BHAKTI POETRY (AD 600 TO AD 1200)

A Note on Bhakti Poetry by Eleanor Zelliot
Speaking of Siva (1973)
Hymns for the Drowning (1981)