Beneath the Banyan Tree

Dr.K.S.Subramanian (1937) belongs to the Thirunelveli District of Tamil Nadu and presently lives in Chennai. He has Masters Degrees in Physics, History, and Business Management and a Doctorate in Public Administration. He served the Government of India (IRAS) from 1960 to 1975 and the Asian Development Bank from 1975 to 1998, retiring as a Director. Since his return to India in 1998, he has been involved in literary and social pursuits. He has translated more than 30 Tamil literary works into English. The translations cover 11 novels, 7 novellas, 3 collections of short stories, 7 anthologies of Poetry (including about eighty Sangam Poems). He has also translated a large number of collected essays covering literary and socio-economic themes as also biographical and autobiographical works. He has translated more than 40% of Subramania Bharathiar’s poetic corpus as a part of the proposed Sahitya Akademi publication of the entire works of Bharathi in English translation. His translations have been published by Sahitya Akademi, Macmillan, Katha, East-West Books, New Horizon, Tamil University, International Institute of Tamil Studies, Central Institute of Indian Languages, Kanaiyazhi Pathippagam and others. He has presented a sizeable number of Papers in Tamil and in English in different fora. These include Papers on eminent creative writers of Tamil such as Subramania Bharathi, Na.Pichamurthy, Laa.Sa.Ramamirtham, Thi. Janakiraman, Ka.Naa. Subramanyam, Asokamithran, Jayakanthan, Venkat Samnathan, Sirpi Balasubramaniam, Erode Thamizhanban and others. The papers also encompass literature society interface and development humanism challenges. He was the compiling editor of Jayakanthan Reader, one of the pioneering efforts in this genre in Tamil. He has collated and brought out seminal articles of the Father of India’s Green Revolution, C.Subramaniam ( a Bharath Ratna Honouree), published by Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan. Seven volumes of his Tamil articles and Papers have been published, covering literary, social and developmental themes. He has received a few awards in the field of literary translation. He is a trustee of National Agro Foundation involved in comprehensive rural development, and also a trustee of MOZHI Trust, a resource centre of Tamil language and culture. He is a former member of the Tamil Advisory Board of Sahitya Akademi.