Panel discussion
Not So Faraway: On how writers perceive and occupy the other to write their stories

Thu, 08.12.2022
6:00 PM - 19:30 Goethe-Institut / Max Mueller Bhavan Auditorium

Perception is related to insights and understanding. In a story, how each character is perceived by each one varies according to the narration, experiences and worldviews. Writers have their own perceptions to describe, analyze and explain content. So what are the techniques that are employed by writers when they write about other cultures and what are the challenges that the translators face when they intend to capture the otherness?

In this panel discussion, we have two eminent writers, one from Germany and one from India along with a prominent translator, discussing how they perceive the other in their writings. They shall also deliberate on how the perception of the foreign is reflected in their works and how they shape ideas and images of the other world through their works.

The event is part of the series "The Sound of Faraway Lands" on the occasion of 100 years of Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse.

Participants:

Christopher Kloeble
Christopher Kloeble is a German novelist, playwright, and scriptwriter. He studied at the German Creative Writing Program in Leipzig, and he has held teaching assignments and residencies in Germany, the US, UK, and India, among others. For his first novel Amongst Loners, he won the Jürgen Ponto Stiftung prize for best debut 2008. His third book, Almost Everything Very Fast, is currently being adapting as a feature film.

Jeyamohan
B. Jeyamohan (b. 1962), based in Nagercoil is a pre-eminent writer in modern Tamil literature. One of the most prolific writers in India today, he has authored more than two hundred books, spanning novels, short fiction, travelogues, literary criticism and essays on heritage and philosophy, amongst others. Apart from containing critically acclaimed works such as Vishnupuram (1997) and Kottravai (2005), Jeyamohan’s oeuvre includes a 26-part novel called Venmurasu (The White Drum), a post-modern reimagination of the Mahabharata in 2020. Spanning more than 25,000 pages, it is perhaps the longest literary work in the world. Also a master of the short story form, Jeyamohan wrote a sequence of 125 stories, one for each day of the pandemic-induced lockdowns in 2020. Jeyamohan has received many honours, including the Akilan Memorial Prize, the Katha Award, the Sanskriti Samman and the Iyal Award (Canada).

Priyamvada Ramkumar
Priyamvada Ramkumar is a private equity investor and literary translator. She translates from her native tongue Tamil into English. Her first book-length translation, Stories of the True (a translation of B.Jeyamohan’s Aram), was published by Juggernaut Books in August 2022. Her work in progress translation of Jeyamohan’s novel, Vellai Yaanai (White Elephant) has been chosen for the PEN/Heim Translation Fund Grants 2023 – the first work awarded from a South Indian language in the grant’s twenty year history. She recently co-founded Mozhi, an initiative that aims to bring together literatures from various Indian languages and provide a platform for critical discourse. She lives in Chennai.

Moderation by Dr. Katharina Görgen
Dr. Görgen is the Director of Goethe-Institut Chennai. She is a film scientist, a feminist aficionado with years of experience in media culture and theatre.