CHENNAI: Aniruddhan Vasudevan’s translation of Perumal Murugan’s controversial Tamil novel Maadhorubaagan has been awarded the Sahitya Akademi Translation Prize in English 2016. The award will be conferred on Vasudevan along with the winners of the award in 23 languages in June this year.
“I am delighted as this is an honour,” said Vasudevan. “I had no idea that One Part Woman was being considered for this award. This was my first book-length translation as most of my prior works were translations of smaller pieces but I translated this because it is a book that I love and is very close to my heart.”
The selection was based on the recommendations of a jury comprising Malayalam poet and critic K Satchidanandan, writer Githa Hariharan and translator and historian A R Vankata-chalapathy.
Perumal Murugan conveyed his greetings to the translator and said he was ‘very happy’ to for him.
“Perumal Murugan had to undergo a lot of stress and violence because of the politicking the book came under in 2014-15,” Vasudevan said. The prize, which is awarded to books first published during five years immediately preceding the year of the award, consists of a casket containing an engraved copper-plaque and a cheque of `50,000.