Reviews
"Earlier translations made selections of classical Tamil poetry accessible to the wider world, but Selby's translation of Ainkurunuru provides a different kind of experience. Rather than translating a small set of poems picked out of a much large collection, Selby translates one entire Sangam text, from the first poem to the last. In doing so, she gives the English reader a chance to see how deeply each of the poems in the collection works in relation to the ones that precede and follow it. In other words, the translation reveals the sensibility not just of individual poems but of the poetic collection itself." -- Paula Richman, Oberlin College, In Selby's exquisite translation, the Ainkurunuru can finally speak to an English-language audience. In these brief, densely packed verses, all the varieties of desire, erotic longing, jealousy, anger, infidelity, and domestic romance find their own natural landscapes. By rendering the entire anthology, Selby enables an appreciation of both the evocative individual poems and the subtle gathering architecture of the whole., The Ainkurunuru, with its exquisite haikulike poems, is, by any standard, a major South Asian literary text, eminently worthy of a good poetic translation into English. Martha Ann Selby is one of the finest translators from Tamil, Prakrit, and Sanskrit in this generation. She has a wonderful ear for the deft turn of phrase in English and is a very sensitive and erudite reader of Tamil. She has opened up the Ainkurunuru to the worldwide audience it deserves., "The Ainkurunuru, with its exquisite Haiku-like poems, is, by any standard, a major South Asian literary text, eminently worthy of a good poetic translation into English. It has now found its translator.Martha Ann Selby is one of the finest translators from Tamil, Prakrit, and Sanskrit in this generation. She has a wonderful ear for the deft turn of phrase in English, and she is a very sensitive and erudite reader of Tamil. She has opened up the Ainkurunuru to the world-wide audience it deserves." -- David Shulman, Hebrew University, Jerusalem, Rather than translating a small set of poems picked out of a much larger collection, Selby translates one entire Sangam text, from the first poem to the last. In doing so, she gives the English reader a chance to see how deeply each of these poems works in relation to the ones that precede and follow it. In other words, her translation reveals the sensibility not just of individual poems but of the poetic collection itself.
