A celebrated work by the greatest poet of classical Tamil literature Tiruvalluvar probably lived and wrote between the second century BC and the eighth century AD though his dates have not been conclusively established. The work by which he is known, the Kural, comprises 1,330 couplets and is divided into three sections—Virtue, Wealth and Love—and is based on the first three of the four supreme aims prescribed by Hindu tradition: dharma (virtue), artha (wealth), kama (love) and moksha (salvation). Taken together, the three books of the Kural inform, criticize and teach the reader, in brilliantly styled and pithy verse, about life, love and the ways of the world. Translated and edited with an introduction by P.S. Sundaram

Satguru Sivaya Subramuniyaswami, a living legend, yoga master and author of Merging with Siva, recognized the immense value of the Tirukural in 1949 as a young seeker in Sri Lanka. Decades later, he instructed two of his swamis to translate it from classical Tamil into American English, and had an renowned artist in South India illustrate the 108 chapters. Here is the fruit of those efforts, the gentle, profound world of Asian ethics and simple humanness. Yet, Weaver's Wisdom's universality makes it a book you can share with anyone. It contains fortune cookies you can snack on before sleep or at anytime. Its charming wit and common sense will uplift and inspire you and your whole family.

Give, Eat, and Live is a selection of poems translated from the 12th century Tamil poet Avvaiyar, arguably one of the most important female poets in Tamil's two-thousand-and-five-hundred years of literary history, and certainly one of the best known, of any gender. Although people across the state of Tamil Nadu know many of her works by heart, she has received little attention outside India, owing largely to the lack of decent translations. The one comprehensive work in English, Avvaiyar, a great Tamil poetess, by C. Rajagopalachari (Bombay: Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, 1971), has long since been out of print and renders Avvaiyar's poems in accurate but wooden translations. This book, by contrast, seeks to render her finest songs in a supple and poetically charged English that allows both her intellect and poetry to shine. The selection includes poems from two of Avvaiyar's major books on the good life, Muturai: The Word that Endures, and Nalvali: The Right Road. It also includes a generous sampling of poetry that was written separately and later gathered into collections. All of them use a Tamil form called venpa, dating back to the late Sangam period (first to third century C.E.). Though they speak of ethics, they do not cease to be poetry, employing imagery drawn from the Tamil landscape as well as a deeply musical line. These are poems meant to be chanted and sung. Many of these poems have been published individually, not only in India by the country's leading journal of Indian literature in translation, but also by the Temenos Academy in London. Give, Eat, and Live, in turn, will bring her work the wider attention it has long since deserved. Both aficionados of Indian literature and lovers of poetry alike will savor this first literary translation of one of Tamil's best loved poets.

This book—an English translation of a key Tamiḻ book of literary and cultural criticism—looks at the construction of Tamiḻ scholarship through the colonial approach to Tamiḻ literature as evidenced in the first translations into English. The Tamiḻ original Atikāramum tamiḻp pulamaiyum: Tamiḻiliruntu mutal āṅkila moḻipeyarppukaḷ by N Govindarajan is a critique of the early attempts at the translations of Tamiḻ literary texts by East India Company officials, specifically by N E Kindersley. Kindersley, who was working as the Collector of South Arcot district in the late eighteenth century, was the first colonial officer to translate the Tamiḻ classic Tirukkuṟaḷ and the story of King Naḷa into English and to bring to the reading public in English the vibrant oral narrative tradition in Tamiḻ. F W Ellis in the nineteenth century brought in another dimension through his translation of the same classic. The book, thus, focuses on the attempts to translate the Tamiḻ literary works by the Company’s officials who emerged as the pioneering English Dravidianists and the impact of translations on the Tamiḻ reading community. Theoretically grounded, the book makes use of contemporary perspectives to examine colonial interventions and the operation of power relations in the literary and socio-cultural spheres. It combines both critical readings of past translations and intensive research work on Tamiḻ scholarship to locate the practice of literary works in South Asia and its colonial history, which then enables a conversation between Indian literary cultures. In this book, the author has not only explored all key scholarly sources as well as the commentaries that were used by the colonial officials, chiefly Kindersley, but also gives us an insightful critique of the Tamiḻ works. The highlight of the discussion of Dravidian Orientalism in this book is the intralinguistic opposition of the “mainstream” Tamiḻ literature in “correct/poetical” Tamiḻ and the folk literature in “vacana” Tamiḻ. This framework allows the translators to critically engage with the work. Annotated and with an Introduction and a Glossary, this translated work is a valuable addition to our reading of colonial South India. The book will be of interest to researchers of Tamiḻ Studies, Orientalism and Indology, translation studies, oral literature, linguistics, South Asian Studies, Dravidian Studies and colonial history.

Text of Tirukkur̲aḷ by Tiruvaḷḷuvar, Tamil poet, with Nepali translation; prefatory matter in English.

Contributed articles.

In his first collection, Thomas Hitoshi Pruiksma explores the edges of memory, childhood, and home. His poems remind us, with quiet generosity, of what makes us whole. "If we hope to proceed into the future as a civilized country," writes the poet Wendell Berry, "we are going to need the work and the example of young people such as Mr. Pruiksma."