The Center for Tamil Culture will organise a three-day meeting of eminent Tamil writers and scholars across the globe in the city from January 20 to 22.
Titled ‘Thayagam Kadantha Tamil’, the international conference will see the participation of 35 experts from all over the world, said Nalla G. Palaniswami, founder-chairman of the Center, here on Friday.
The experts include R. Karthickesu from Malaysia, Cheran and A. Muthulingam from Canada, Nagarathnam Krishna from France, S. Ponnudurai from Australia, Shanmuga Siva and Muthu Nedumaran from Malaysia, Ulriche Nicholas from Germany, Kalaimagal from China, Seethalakshmi and Azhagiya Pandian from Singapore – all experts in their field, said senior journalist Maalan, who is the convener of the international conference.
Seven sessionsThere would be seven sessions which will focus on literature, media, technology and education, for the four were important to take Tamil to the next generation.
Sirpi Balasubramaniam, one of the trustees of the Centre, said that there were writers, scholars and experts from 12 countries to talk about their experience.
They will elaborate on their understanding of language, how they viewed the Tamil publishing world, how technology had helped bridge the divide among Tamil writers and many more interesting topics.
This was not the first programme. The Centre for Tamil Culture had conducted such an event, he said. It had also organised events focussing on Tamil writers from the Kongu region and honouring writers, he added.
Improving qualityLater talking to The Hindu Mr. Maalan said that the main aim of involving writers from outside Tamil Nadu will help improve quality of works published here. In other words the participants would surely bring in variety and experience that would enhance quality to whatever was available locally.
It would also bring in new sections to Tamil literature just as there was American literature, African literature. He also hoped that in addition there would also be dialogue and synergy among the writers.
He said that it was wrong to say that the Tamil diaspora literature was dominated by those from Sri Lanka, though it was true that there were many from the island nation, who shared their experience of being away from homeland and the struggle they went through.
The Tamil diaspora literature included publications from people from Australia, Switzerland, Canada, the U.S., Malaysia and Singapore. And their experiences and works were as varied as any other. At the conference one could find feminist literature, post-modern literature and much more.
Mr. Maalan said that a concerted effort was needed to take the works of writers outside Tamil Nadu to readers across the world and suggested that e-publishing could be a way out.
e-publishingThough a few publications in Tamil Nadu encouraged writers from abroad, the best way forward was e-publishing. But it was not uploading content that was converted into the printable document format.
It had to be e-publishing in the real sense, he said and added that efforts were also being made to take the works to the mobile platform. He also welcomed the government support to such endeavours.
