‘Writing is a political act’: Perumal Murugan on translation, power and readers

Perumal Murugan, by his own account, never imagined or expected that one day he would be addressing readers who had discovered his work without reading it in Tamil. The acclaimed writer and poet, whose works have brought to a wider audience an entire way of life and a culture that perhaps had not been part of the mainstream, is now read not just across India but across the globe, chiefly due to translations into English and other languages that have helped bridge the language barrier. Even so, Murugan prefers Tamil when speaking in public. That did not stop a packed hall from crowding in to hear him at the recently concluded Book Brahma Literature Festival in Bengaluru, held over the last weekend.

Murugan was on a panel with fellow writers and poets Benyamin, Salma and Imayam at a session discussing “The Art of Fiction: Stories That Define Our Times.”

Having started self-publishing his work in the late 1980s, Murugan says he has seen tremendous growth in the opportunities available to writers to publish their work and to readers to discover it. The result, he says, gives him “immense happiness”.

In a conversation with South First, Murugan offered insights into his world and his writing, exploring how his novels and characters open up entire worlds and why the very act of writing is political.