“Three Language Bodies in a Landscape”

Puthiya Sol special edition magazine launch

In February 2018 the Jaffna-born and Berlin-based author and philosopher Senthuran Varatharajah met the writers and poets Kirishanth Sivasubramaniyam, Yatharthan Kunaradnam and Brinthan Kanesalingam for the first time. A year later, during the 2019 Galle Literary Festival Senthuran Varatharajah again met the three Tamil-speaking writers who form the collective behind literary magazine Puthiya Sol. During the literature festival and a subsequent workshop at the Goethe-Institut, the four authors were able to continue the discourses they had begun in Jaffna. At the same time, the English-speaking writer Anuk Arudpragasam, who also has Tamil-Sri Lankan roots, took part in the literary exchange. These encounters provided the starting point for the Goethe-Institut supported project ‘Three Language Bodies in a Landscape’ and thus also for the literary journey towards the launch of the special edition of the Puthiya Sol magazine.

How are thoughts shaped by language? What are the different realities of publication and translation in Tamil, English, and German? Who is entitled to narrate which realities, and what part does imagination play in writing? During the project ‘Three Language Bodies in a Landscape’ these and other questions were brought up and discussed by the five authors, who all originate from the landscape of Northern Sri Lanka, but are connected to it in different ways. After three days of intensive exchange in Jaffna in September last year, Anuk Arudpragasam, Brinthan Kanesalingam, Yatharthan Kunaradnam, Kirishanth Sivasubramaniyam und Senthuran Varatharajah felt inspired to document their thoughts on the various topics addressed in short texts.
The September 2020 special edition of the Puthiya Sol Magazine is dedicated to these texts and will present them to the public with the launch on September 6 at Kälam in Jaffna. Another small special feature is that for the first time English and German texts will also be printed in the so far exclusively Tamil language literary magazine.

Limited places available, please register via email to: kalamjaffna@gmail.com

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