The English translation of Tamil writer Jeyamohan’s short story Periyammavin Sorkal, Periyamma’s Words in English, has won the first prize in the Close Approximations translation contest run by Asymptote, a site for world literature in translation.
The translation was done by 29-year-old Suchitra Ramachandran, originally from Madurai.
She has a doctoral degree in biological sciences from Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, U.S., and is currently a post-doctoral neuroscientist based in Basel, Switzerland. The site announced that from 215 fiction and 128 poetry submissions, judges David Bellos and Sawako Nakayasu picked a winner and two runners-up in each category to receive $1,000 and $250 respectively. It won the London Book Fair’s International Literary Translation Initiative in 2015.
Story of Periyamma
The short story revolves around Periyamma, from the Tamil word for aunt, who is learning English as part of her preparation to settle in the U.S. with her great-granddaughter. Though she has a couple of names, everyone calls her Periyamma, who was born and married to a wealthy family.
“She is an illiterate, but has the capacity to relate stories of Indian epics with epics of other nations. She is both strict and generous. She easily reconciles herself to changing times. The translator has succeeded in capturing the essence of the story, particularly the fun,” said Mr. Jeyamohan.
Even though it was difficult to translate dialects, the translator had done justice and it would help an English reader to understand them, Mr. Jeyamohan said.
