Archana Venkatesan Wins Prize for Making Tamil Opus Sing in Translation

By Dave Jones, UC Davis Dateline

In one of India's most revered ancient bhakti poems, Tiruvāymoḻi, an epic Tamil work from the ninth century, Nammāḻvār sings of his ecstatic devotion to God. Twelve centuries later, this important text sings in English, too, thanks to UC Davis Professor Archana Venkatesan’s translation.

So said the judges who earlier this month named her “monumental” work, Endless Song, as the winner of the 2021 Lucien Stryk Asian Translation Prize. The $6,000 award is from the American Literary Translators Association.

Venkatesan has a dual appointment in the departments of Religious Studies and Comparative Literature, and writes about her work on her website and blog, “Poetry Makes Worlds: On Tamil, Temples and Translations.”

Read the full article at the UC Davis News website.