Publishers DC Books is planning to translate the protest poetry of noted Chilean poet Raul Zurita into Malayalam.
The poet was in town the other day to deliver the first in a series of art talks organised by the Kochi Biennale Foundation (KBF) in the build up to the forthcoming edition of the Kochi Muziris Biennale slated to get under way in December next.
“We are trying to obtain rights for translating his works,” Tomy Antony of DC Books said.
In Kochi the other day, Mr. Zurita, in his interaction with writer Sharmistha Mohanty titled Sky Below, said that the history of poetry is that of resistance.
He said the whole universe partook of an individual’s pain and that poetry’s survival would be as a beacon of hope. The poet’s responses in Spanish were translated by Anna Deeny. Mr. Zurita recalled the dark days of Augusto Pinochet and defence against fascism was built up by means of the written word.
Poet Balachandran Chullikkad honoured Mr. Zurita with a ponnada and said the celebrated poet belonged to the great tradition of Latin American poets who used their craft to resist oppression, imperialism, fascism and torture by the ruling forces.
In 1979, Mr. Zurita co-founded the Colectivo de Acciones de Arte (CADA), an art action group dedicated to the creation of public and political art to protest against Pinochet’s dictatorship.
He was later awarded the Pablo Neruda Prize for his contributions and achievements to poetry in 1989. Besides works like Purgatorio, La Vida Nueva, INRI and Zurita, he has done the famous skywritten poetry performance over New York in 1982.
