R. Cheran
Dr. R. Cheran is Tamil Canadian academic, poet, playwright and journalist. He is a professor at the University of Windsor in Canada. He has authored over fifteen books in Tamil, and his work has been translated into twenty languages. Several volumes of his work have been published in English translation:
The Second Sunrise. Translated by Lakshmi Holmstrom. New Delhi: Navayana,2010.
You Cannot Turn Away. Translated by Chelva Kanaganayakam. Toronto: Mawenzi Publishers. 2011.
In a Time of Burning. Translated by Lakshmi Holmstrom and Sascha Ebeling. Arc Publications, Todmorden: UK. 2013. Translation of his poems in Bengali: Nirbajitha Kobita. Translated by Saubhik de Sircar. 2018. Translation in Dutch: Het verhaal van de Zea. Translated by Bhavani Thambirajah. Assen: The Netherlands. 2018.
Translation of his poems in Spanish: Siembra Polo Palabras. Translated by Isabel Alonso Breto. Barcelona: Navona Publishers. 2019.
Translation of his poems in Malayalam: kaatril ezuthal. Thiruvananthapuram: DC Books. 2020.
His poems in English translation have been published in the following literary magazines:
Bomb (New York), Modern Poetry in Translation, Many Mountains Moving, Exiled Ink, Mantra Review, and Talisman. His poems have been included in the following anthologies: 1. Singing in the Dark: An Anthology of Lockdown Poems. Penguin Random House. 2020.
2. Many Roads Through Paradise: Sri Lankan Literature, edited by Shyam Selvadurai, Penguin India, 2014
3. In Our Translated World: Global Tamil Poetry, edited by Chelva Kanaganayakam, Toronto: TSAR Press, 2014
4. The Rapids of Great River: The Penguin Book of Tamil Poetry, edited by Lakshmi Holmstrom, Subashree Krishnaswamy and K.Sri Lata, Penguin India, 2009
5. Wilting Laughter: Three Tamil Poets, edited and translated by Chelva Kanaganayakam, Toronto: TSAR Publications, 2009
6. Language for a New Century: Contemporary Poems from the Middle East, Asia and Beyond, edited by Tina Chang, Natalie Kendall and Ravi Shankar, New York: W.W.Norton, 2008
Dr.Cheran was the recipient of the International Poetry Award from ONV Kurup Foundation in Dubai in 2017. He has performed is poetry at various International Writers’ festivals in the United Kingdom, Singapore, the US, Indonesia, India, Sweden, the Netherlands, Canada, Ramallah, West Bank, Dubai and Mexico.
His plays in English language have been produced and performed in Toronto, Canada, New York, Chicago and New Jersey in the US. Singapore’s modern dance group Chowk has produced and performed a dance play based on his poems titled “The Second Sunrise”. The Second Sunrise was performed at the Singapore International dance festival, and Washington’s Kennedy Centre for the arts. Here is a link to a sample of his work in performance:
https://www.arcpublications.co.uk/books/cheran-in-a-time-of-burning-488
http://www.chowk.sg/the-second-sunrise