Harshaneeyam Harshaneeyam

Today’s guest is Aananth Daksnamurthy. He is speaking about his passion for reading and publishing and his upcoming trip to India and Srilaka to look for literature for publication as a part of the SALT initiative.  Aananth Daksnamurthy is a Fulbright scholar graduating with a master's in publishing from New York University. His first book, Acquisition, a Swedish novel titled The Details, was shortlisted for the International Booker Prize 2024. Ananth is also part of the SALT contingent, visiting India, Sri Lanka, and Bangladesh this year and scouting literature for publication in the USA and UK.
SALT—‘South Asian Languages in Translation’ is an initiative by the University of Chicago to bring South Asian literature in English Translation to the Anglophone world. Translators Daniel Hahn, Jason Grunebaum, Arunava Sinha, Daisy Rockwell, and Author VV Ganeshanandan are part of the team leading SALT.
SALT Travel Grant
About the SALT Project
Harshaneeyam: Welcome to Harshaneeyam Aananth.
Aananth Daksnamurthy: Thank you for having me. It's a pleasure to be here. 
H: How did you develop an interest in literature? 
A: I was born and raised in a small town, Trichy, in Tamil Nadu. From childhood, I started reading pretty early. With all the supplements, usually, the newspaper supplements that come, these are Siruvar Malar, Siruvar Mani, the kid supplementary books I started reading, and mostly newspapers. That's how my literary journey started. I was not a very avid reader initially. I only engaged with news and media in general, but I followed the traditional route of higher education and went on to do engineering. I'm a mechanical engineer with a bachelor's degree and went on to do a postgrad diploma in liberal arts at Ashoka University as a young India fellow. This was partly due to some elective courses I took during my final semester, and I needed to explore more humanities. It gave me a lot of exposure, and two courses stood out.
I took one critical writing course, and I began to write. I became a very effective communicator both in writing and in oral communication. Then, I took another course, Culture and Communication, which was a sociology course. This course gave me a lens on caste, religion, sexuality, and gender. These two courses moulded me into a very different person from who I was initially. Then, I went on to work with ‘The Print’. YIF also gave me a thirst for reading, and I've just started reading a lot of nonfiction. That was a phase when I was reading a lot of nonfiction coming out of Ashoka, more public policy, economics, or history-related nonfiction. I used to go to Delhi Tamil Sangam's library and pick some of these Tamil books there. I initially started with Prabhanjan's short stories, a collection of short stories by the Tamil writer Prabhanjan. I've explored many authors, many genres within Tamil, and contemporary Tamil writing.
And yeah, I've read Jeyamohan. He's a great writer. I love his work. Nooru Naarkaaligal is one of my favourite works from Aram. I've heard so much of S Ra. S Ramakrishnan is another Tamil writer and Sahitya Akademi Award winner. In those days, his videos were podcasts. So, the YouTube videos were an hour or two long. He introduced, at least to this generation, Gogol, Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, and Pushkin. So, a huge introduction to Russian literature came through S. Ramakrishnan. And that's when I remember I started reading much more fiction. Again, short stories were my favourite format. It's also easy to finish short stories and move on to another story, But translated fiction was very recent. I've...

Romesh Gunesekera is on Harshaneeyam talking about evaluating the International Booker Prize - 2024 and his journey as a reader and writer.
Romesh Gunesekera was born in Colombo and lives in London. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. He is currently judging the 2024 International Booker Prize.
(00:00) Introduction to Ramesh Bhunasekara and His Literary Journey

(01:16) The Beginnings of a Reader Turned Writer

(07:38) The Evolution of a Writer: From Reader to International Author

(09:53) Diving Deep into 'Reef': A Booker Prize Journey

(16:12) The Art and Impact of Translation in Literature

(18:54) Inside the International Booker Prize 2024: A Judge's Perspective

(28:09) Reflecting on the Magic of Writing and Reading

33:58 Ramesh Bhunasekara's Current Literary EndeavorsHe is internationally acclaimed for fiction that explores the key themes of our times — political, ecological, and economic — through novels and stories of wide appeal. His fiction over the years includes Reef, shortlisted for the Booker prize in 1994, The Match. and Noontide Toll. His most recent novel, Suncatcher, returns to an earlier era in Sri Lanka and is a story of divided loyalties and endangered friendships in the turbulent 1960s.He has chaired the Commonwealth Short Story Prize and the Gratiaen Prize in Sri Lanka. .He has taught creative writing and run workshops around the world. He is also the co-author of the Writers’ & Artists’ Companion to Novel Writing.
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***Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed by Interviewees in interviews conducted by Harshaneeyam Podcast are those of the Interviewees and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of Harshaneeyam Podcast. Any content provided by Interviewees is of their opinion and is not intended to malign any religion, ethnic group, club, organization, company, individual, or anyone or anything.


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In this episode, Book Blogger, Reviewer, Stuart Allen spoke about the novel 'Undiscovered' and his passion for book reading.
Stuart Allen Lives in Chesterfield near the Peak District in UK. He works for the NHS to support patients with learning disabilities in the community to avoid going into hospital. He started his blog 'Winston'sdad' 14 years ago.
Initially, the challenge was to read 52 books from 52 countries; having done that, the focus has predominantly been on books in translation. He has reviewed over 1300 books from 110-plus countries.
He has shadowed the old independent Foreign Fiction Prize and now the Booker International. Where they read and make their own shortlist and choose winner out of longlisted books.
He has also started the hashtag #translationthurs on twitter to promote books in translation.
To Read his blog on Literature in Translation. -
https://harshaneeyam.captivate.fm/stuart-allen
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*Contact us - harshaneeyam@gmail.com
***Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed by Interviewees in interviews conducted by Harshaneeyam Podcast are those of the Interviewees and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of Harshaneeyam Podcast. Any content provided by Interviewees is of their opinion and is not intended to malign any religion, ethnic group, club, organization, company, individual, or anyone or anything.


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'హాటకం' తమిళ రచయిత జయమోహన్ రాసిన కథ. తెలుగులోకి అవినేని భాస్కర్ అనువదించారు. క్రితం వారం 'ఉదయిని' వెబ్ మేగజైన్ లో ప్రచురింపబడింది.
ఈ లింక్ లో కథను చదువుకోవచ్చు.
https://harshaneeyam.captivate.fm/haatakam
There is a mention of suicide in the story. User's Discretion is advised.
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*Contact us - harshaneeyam@gmail.com
***Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed by Interviewees in interviews conducted by Harshaneeyam Podcast are those of the Interviewees and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of Harshaneeyam Podcast. Any content provided by Interviewees is of their opinion and is not intended to malign any religion, ethnic group, club, organization, company, individual, or anyone or anything.


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'Kairos' is a novel written by the famous German Novelist Jenny Erpenbeck. It was translated into English by Michael Hoffman. It is about life in East Germany in the 1980s, the Fall of the Berlin Wall, and its effects. its short listed for International booker prize in 2024.
In this episode, Marina Sofia talks about the novel in detail, having read both the German and the English versions.
Marina Sofia is a reputed translator and co-founder of Corylus Books, a publishing house that translates crime fiction. She is an avid reader and blogger.
Born in East Berlin, Jenny Erpenbeck the author of the novel, is the daughter of the physicist, philosopher and writer John Erpenbeck and the Arabic translator Doris Kilias. She won many awards and her work is translated into more than Thirty languages. Michael Hoffman is a German-born poet, Translator and critic. The 'Guardian has described him as "arguably the world's most influential translator of German into English."
To buy Kairos -
https://harshaneeyam.captivate.fm/Kairos
Read more about Marina Sofia -
https://findingtimetowrite.wordpress.com/
About Corylus books -
https://corylusbooks.com/
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***Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed by Interviewees in interviews conducted by Harshaneeyam Podcast are those of the Interviewees and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of Harshaneeyam Podcast. Any content provided by Interviewees is of their opinion and is not intended to malign any religion, ethnic group, club, organization, company, individual, or anyone or anything.


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Our Guest for this episode is Fiammetta Rocco, Administrator for International Booker Prize since it was established in 2005.
Fiammetta spoke about her childhood in Nairobi, her love for books, her multilingualism, and the significance of the International Booker Prize to the world of literary fiction.
Fiammetta Rocco was an editor for 25 years at The Economist, specialising in books and arts.
Her journalism has won awards on both sides of the Atlantic. Fiammetta has been the judge of numerous prizes for fiction and non-fiction and is also the administrator of the International Booker Prize. Of Franco-Italian origin, she grew up in Kenya and read Arabic at Oxford University. Her book, “The Miraculous Fever Tree”, about malaria and the discovery of quinine, was published in Britain and in America. She and her family live in London and Scotland.
https://thebookerprizes.com/the-booker-library/judges/fiammetta-rocco
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*Contact us - harshaneeyam@gmail.com
***Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed by Interviewees in interviews conducted by Harshaneeyam Podcast are those of the Interviewees and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of Harshaneeyam Podcast. Any content provided by Interviewees is of their opinion and is not intended to malign any religion, ethnic group, club, organization, company, individual, or anyone or anything.


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