COIMBATORE: Poet Puviyarasu, who received the Sahitya Akademi award in 2007 for Puratchikaaran — Tamil translation of Kazi Nazrul Islam’s ‘The Revolutionary’ — and in 2009 for the poetry collection Kaioppam (Signature), died due to age-related ailments at the age of 96 at his house in Press Colony near Periyanaickenpalayam on the city outskirts on Tuesday.
Puviyarasu had translated the works of world-renowned writers such as William Shakespeare, Kahlil Gibran, Omar Khayyam, Fyodor Dostoevsky and Rabindranath Tagore into Tamil.
Born in 1930 in Udumalpet in then Coimbatore district as Jaganathan, he later adopted the Tamil name Puviyarasu, as Jaganathan is a Sanskrit name. Puviyarasu was one of the founders of the Vaanampadi poetry movement, which played a significant role in shifting Tamil poetry from the traditional style to modern free verse. He had also fought tirelessly for Tamil to be recognised and implemented as an official administrative language.
Puviyarasu had authored more than 120 books and translated numerous literary works from English into Tamil. He also contributed to the film industry as a dialogue writer for the Tamil films Mahanadhi and Virumaandi.
CPI Coimbatore district secretary C Sivasamy, Tamil Nadu Kalai Ilakkiya Perumandram district secretary B B Ramani, and Oppressed People’s Rights Movement district secretary A Ashraf Ali expressed their deep condolences and paid tribute to the departed writer.
His funeral will be held at a crematorium in Vannankovil on Wednesday at 9 am.