TAMIL NATION LIBRARY: Literature "...probably the most significant contribution (of the Tamils) is that of Tamil literature, which still remains to be "discovered" and enjoyed by the non Tamilians and adopted as an essential and remarkable part of universal heritage. If it is true that liberal education should "liberate" by demonstrating the cultural values and norms foreign to us, by revealing the relativity of our own values, then the "discovery" and enjoyment of Tamil literature, and even its teaching (as a critical part of the teaching of Indian literatures) should find its place in the systems of Western training and instruction in the humanities..." Kamil Zvelebil in The Smile of Murugan : On Tamil Literature of South India [see also Tamil Language & Literature ]
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+Asia Books South (Editor) - International Encyclopaedia of Indian Literature, Vol. 2: Tamil / Hardcover / January 1987 *Asher, R.E., and R. Radhakrishnan. A Tamil Prose Reader: Selections from Contemporary Tamil Prose with Notes and Glossary. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, England. (1971.) *Cathy Spagnoli, Paramasivam Samanna - Jasmine and Coconuts : South Indian Tales (World Folklore Series) / Hardcover /Published: February 1999 Casie Chetty, Simon : The Tamil Plutarch, A Summary Account of the Lives of the Poets and Poetesses of Southern India and Ceylon, First Published in 1859, Second Revised Edition published by Asian Educational Services,1982 Chelliah, J. V. - Pattuppattu. English & Tamil Ten Tamil idylls, Translated into English verse by [2d ed.] Tirunelveli: South India Saiva Siddhanta Works Pub. Society, 1962 370p; 22cm *Cutler, Norman & Richman Paula - A Gift of Tamil : Translations of Tamil Literature Published 1992 Cuppiramaniyan, A. Ve,.- Literary genres in Tamil: a supplement to a Descriptive Catalogue of Palm-leaf Manuscripts in Tamil,1st ed Madras, India: Institute of Asian Studies, 1993, 493p; 24cm * Danielou, Alain (translator) - Shilappadikaram : The Ankle Bracelet - Ilango Adigal *Danielou, Alan (translator) - Manimekhalai (The Dancer With the Magic Bowl) Paperback, July 1989 "Almost nothing is known of India, its daily life and institutions, in the troubled years of the first centuries of the Christian era. The Manimekhalai, one of the masterpieces of Tamil literature, gives us in the form of didactic novel full of freshness and poetry, a delightful insight into the ways of life, the pleasures, beliefs and philosophical concepts of a refined civilisation... Tamil is the main pre-Aryan language still surviving today.... The Manimekhalai calls into question many of our received ideas concerning ancient India as well as our interpretation of the sources of its present day religion and philosophy. In its clear accounts of the philosophical concepts of the time, the Manimekhalai presents the various currents of pre Aryan thought.... which gradually influenced the Vedic Aryan world... The society in which the action of the Manimekhalai takes has little to do with the Aryanised civilisation of the north which we know from Sanskrit texts...The Greek geographer, Ptolemy in the second century mentions the main ports of southern India and, in particular, Kaaveris Emporium, the Kaveripum-pattinam (or Puhar) of the Manimekhalai .."
*Hart, George L .The Poems of Ancient Tamil : Their Milieu and their Sanskrit Counterparts. Berkely: University of California Press, 1975.308pages. *Hart, George L - Poets of the Tamil Anthologies: Ancient Poems of Love [selected and translated by] Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1979,213p *Hart, George L - The relation between Tamil and classical Sanskrit literature Hart, Kausalya. Tamil Madhu: from Sangam to Bharathy. Center for South Asia Studies, T-9 Building, Room100, University of California, Berkeley, CA 94720 * Herman Jensen - A Classified Collection of Tamil Proverbs / Paperback / First Published: 1897, Reprinted 2000 by Routledge, London * Herman Jensen - A Classical Collection of Tamil Proverbs (Trubner's Oriental Series)
(Hardcover - July 27, 2001) * Herman Jensen - Tamil Proverbs (Hardcover - August 1, 2002) *Institute of Asian Studies - Encyclopaedia of Tamil Literature (In 10 Volumes): Introductory Articles / Hardcover / Published 1990 Kailasapathy, K. Tamil Heroic Poetry .Oxford University Press, 1968. 282 pages. **Kalki R Krishnamurthy - Best of Kalki, Penguin Books Australia Ltd.
Paperback " Synopsis - Twelve memorable stories by the legendary wordsmith of modern Tamil 'Kalki' R. Krishnamurthy, one of the pioneering giants of the Tamil press in the tumultuous times of the nationalist movement, was a versatile and prolific writer, inscribing the urgencies of his time in his fiction. This collection brings together the best of Kalki's short stories, which contain some of the most colourful and enduring characters and themes of Tamil popular fiction of the 1930s and '40s. There is in these stories the heady urgency of the freedom struggle, the piquant humour of the parodied Tamil gothic and devastating social satire. In her sensitive translations, Gowri Ramnarayan has succeeded in capturing the nuances of the gently mordant wit that made Kalki's stories the highlight of the magazines they were originally published in, creating for themselves a dedicated following that flourishes undiminished to this day. Coinciding with the centenary of Kalki's birth, this volume is a well-deserved tribute to a writer whose breadth of vision and genius imagined and served a new India.
*Kalki R Krishnamurthy - Parthiban Kanavu MacMillan India Ltd. Hardcover [also at amazon.co.uk ] *Kersenboom, Saskia -Word, Sound, Image : The Life of the Text (Explorations in Anthropology) Hardcover / Published 1995 Konraiventhan Illustrated, World Tamil Women Organisation, USA *Lakshmi, C.S. Face Behind the Mask:Women in Tamil Literature, Vikas Publishing House *John Lazarus - A Dictionary of Tamil Proverbs (Hardcover - August 1991) *Manuel, Dr. (Ms.) Indra. - Literary Theories in Tamil (with special reference to Tolkaapiyam), ISDN:81-85452-06-7, Pondicherry Institute of Linguistics and Culture, 19 Chinna Subbaraaya Pillai Street, Pondicherry - 605 001 (India) Contact: Sunder Manuel Marr, J.R. The Eight Anthologies. Madras: Institute of Asian Studies, 1985.550 pages. Muilwijk, M. The Divine Kura Tribe Kuravanci and other Prabandhams Mutthirulandi, Prof Raja - Ilakkiyathil Manitha Urimaigal (Human Rights in Literature), published by Soorya Pathippakam, PO Box No 33, Tiruchirapalli 620001, Tamil Nadu India, Pages:133+ Year of Publication 2000 [suggested by , from Tamil Nadu] Publishers Note: The book is perhaps the first and pioneering one initiating a new approach in the domains of Human Rights and Literature, approaching Literature from Human Rights perspectives. It would be a highly useful resoure in the field of Human Rights Education.It would also be a very valuable addition to the resources on Human Rights available in the regional language (TAMIL)
*Nadarajah, Devapoopathy - Love in Sanskrit and Tamil Literature: A Study of Characters and Nature, Hardcover / Published: January 1995 *Nakkiranar, et al The Study of Stolen Love : A Translation of Kalaviyal Enra Iraiyanar Akapporul With Commentary Published 1997 *Parthasarathy, R - The Cilappatikaram of Ilanko Atikal : An Epic of South India (Translations from the Asian Classics) Published 1992 * Percival Tamil Proverbs : With the English Translation Containing More Than Six Thousand Proverbs * Murugan Perumal Seasons of the Palm, Tara Publishers, 2004 Shortlisted for the Kiriyama Prize. Translated from the Tamil original Koolla Madari by V.Geeta. Seasons of the Palm focuses on the arduous lives of a group of lovingly drawn child characters with colorful names like "Shortie," "Tallfellow," "Matchbox," and "Stumpleg." Born into a dalit caste in Tamil Nadu, the children work as goat herders and face not only the universal difficulties of adolescence but at the same time heartbreaking hunger and dispossession. Seasons of the Palm is the first Tamil novel to have earned international recognition. Novelist Perumal Murugan is a college teacher by profession. He teaches Tamil language and literature at a state college in western Tamil Nadu, India. Murugan grew up in a harsh landscape, amidst hardworking peasants. His fiction recreates the everyday brutality of caste society in relentless detail while hinting at the possibilities of joy and comradeship that are yet possible.
*Pope, G.U. (Trans.) - Naladiyar of Four Hundred Quatrains in Tamil First Published Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1893 *Pope, G.U. - Sacred Kural of Tiruvalauva Nayanar English Translation [see also G.U.Pope at Tamil Language & Literature] *Purnalingam Pillai, M.S. - Tamil Literature 2nd Edition, 1994 Rajagopalachari, C. - Ramayana [English translation by Ramnath Goenka] 18th ed Bombay: Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, 1978 320p *Rajam, Dr.V.S. - A Reference Grammar of Classical Tamil Poetry (150 B.C.--Pre-Fifth/Sixth Century A.D.) Published by the Amerian Philosophical Society, Philadelphia.1992 Ramachandran, T.N.- Krishnanjali: an English rendering of Mahakavi Bharati's Kannan Paattu with translation, notes and index - Thanjavur: TRN Memorial Library, 1980 *Ramanujam, A.K. - Poems of Love and War from the Eight Anthologies and the Ten Songs of Classical Tamil (Trans.) New York: Columbia University Press,1985. 329 pages. *Ramanujan, A.K. -The Interior Landscape : Love Poems from a Classical Tamil Anthology / Paperback / Published: August 1994 *Richman, Paula -Extraordinary Child: Poems from a South Indian Devotional Genre / Paperback / Published: December 1997 *Roy, K.K. - Subramanya Bharati [see also Subramanya Bharathi - Some Reflections by Nadesan Satyendra] Shanmuganathan, Varatha A book of Tamil Songs Sivagnanam, M.P. History of the growth of Tamil during the Indian War of Independence - English Translation by K.Chellappan Somasundaram Pillai, J.M. Two Thousand Years of Tamil Literature,The South India Saiva Siddhanta Works Publishing Society (Tinnevely) Ltd.,Madras, 1959 *Subramanyam Ka Naa - Tamil Short Stories (edited by with a critical introduction) - New Delhi: Vikas, 1980 202p Sujatha's Writings - E-Books "..In this Site all the works of the eminent Tamil Writer Sujatha are made available classified into short stories, novels, plays, and essays. The text is in Unicode and searchable with keywords." *Takanobu Takahashi - Tamil Love Poetry and Poetics (Brill's Indological Library, Vol 9) Published 1995 Thiruvalluvar's Thirukural | | * Weaver's Wisdom - Ancient Precepts for a Perfect Life - American English Translation of the Thirukural - Satguru Sivaya Subramuniyswami | | *Thirukkural (Original in Tamil with English Translation) - W. H. Drew, John Lazarus (Translators) | *The Kural (Penguin Classics)
by Tiruvalluvar, P.S. Sundaram (Translator) | | *Sacred Kural of Tiruvalauva Nayanar English Translation by G.U. Pope | *Tirouvallouvar : Kural Traudit Du Tamoul (Tamil/French)
by Gnandu Diagou | * Tirukural
by Satguru Sivaya Subramuniyaswami | *Immortal Kural
by V.C. Kulandai Swamy | *The Bible and Kural : a comparison
by V. Antony John Alaharasan | | |
Varadarajan, Mu: A History of Tamil Literature 375pp - Translated from the Tamil by E.Sa.Visswanathan, Sahitya Akademi, Madras1988 Vaiyapuri Pillai, S. History of Tamil Language and Literature, New Century Book House, Madras, 1956 Veluppillai, A. tamiz ilakijattil kAlamum karuttum - An Outline of Tamil Literary Thought. Third reprint. Madras. Paari Puthakappannai,1985. 214 pages. Rajah Viknarasah - Rising Through The Wheels - The Tirukkural Way: Ancient Tamil wisdom for Success | 
