R. Parthasarathy

R. Parthasarathy (born 1934) is an Indian poet, translator, critic, and editor.

Early life and education

Rajagopal Parthasarathy was born on 20 August 1934 in Tirupparaiturai near Tiruchchirappalli. He was educated at Don Bosco High School and Siddharth College, Mumbai and at Leeds University, UK, where he was British Council Scholar in 1963–64.

Career

He was Lecturer in English Literature in Mumbai for ten years before joining Oxford University Press in 1971 as Regional Editor in Chennai. He moved to New Delhi in 1978. He is Associate Professor of English and Asian Studies at Skidmore College in Saratoga Springs, New York, United States .

His works include Poetry from Leeds in 1968, Rough Passage brought out by Oxford University Press in 1977, a long poem ( Preface "a book where all poems form part of a single poem, as it were" – R. Parthasarathy ) and edited Ten Twentieth-Century Indian Poets published by Oxford University Press in 1976 which went into Sixteenth Impression only in 2002. He translates from Tamil to English. His translation into modern English verse of the 5th-century Tamil epic, The Tale of the Anklet: An Epic of South India was brought out by Columbia UP in 1993. It has received significant awards including the Sahitya Akademi Translation Prize in 1995 and The Association for Asian Studies, Inc. – A.K. Ramanujan Book Prize for Translation in 1996. He was awarded the Ulka Poetry Prize of Poetry India in 1966. He was a member of the University of Iowa Writing Program during 1978–79. He was member of the Advisory Board for English of the Sahitya Akademi – the National Academy of Letters, New Delhi, India.

Books

• Rough Passage. (Poetry in English). New Delhi: Oxford University Press, India 1977. ISBN 0-19-560690-6
• Poetry from Leeds. Leeds: Oxford University Press, UK 1968.

Editor

• Ten Twentieth-Century Indian Poets. ( Chosen and Edited by R. Parthasarathy ). New Delhi: Oxford University Press, India 1977. ISBN 0-19-562402-5

Translations

• Cilappatikaram of Ilanko Atikal (The Tale of an Anklet): An Epic of South India. ( Translator – R. Parthasarathy ). New York City: Columbia University Press, USA 1993.

Appearances in the following poetry Anthologies

• Ten Twentieth-Century Indian Poets (1976) ed. by R. Parthasarathy and published by Oxford University Press, New Delhi

Online references

• Translation as an Afterlife: Making Dead Indian Poets Speak by R. Parthasarathy

Award

• The Association for Asian Studies, Inc. – A.K. Ramanujan Book Prize for Translation, 1996 for R. Parthasarathy

See also

• Indian English Literature