Episode 19
Writer, Translator, Poet Thomas Hitoshi Pruiksma on his literary Journey with Tamil
My guest for today is Thomas Hitoshi Pruiksma — an American writer, poet, and translator who has spent more than two decades of his life inside the Tamil language. Thomas first arrived in Madurai in 1998, almost by accident, planning to study Spanish and ecological ethics, and instead found himself apprenticed to a remarkable teacher, Dr. K. V. Ramakoti.
That apprenticeship reshaped his entire life, drawing him from spoken Tamil into the world of Sangam poetry, Avvaiyar, and eventually the Tirukkural. His books include Give, Eat, and Live: Poems of Avvaiyar, A Feast for the Tongue, and his celebrated translation The Kural: Tiruvalluvar's Tirukkural, published by Beacon Press and honoured with Tamil Nadu's Ancient Tamil Literature Promotion Award.
Alongside his Tamil work, Thomas has spent years translating Juan Rulfo's Spanish classic Pedro Páramo, and he is now writing his own novel, The Pines, about music, adolescence, and time. In our conversation, we talk about his childhood love of books and magic, the strange twist of fate that took him to Tamil Nadu instead of Mexico, and how learning Tamil changed the very way he perceives the world.
We also talk about how translation found him — not as a plan, but as an inner necessity to share the poems he had fallen in love with. He speaks about the twelve years his teacher spent quietly nudging him towards translating the Tirukkural, his deep love of one-on-one teaching, and his continuing engagement with contemporary Tamil writers like Perumal Murugan.
It is a rich, wide-ranging conversation about language, devotion, and the long, patient work of carrying words across worlds. So settle in, and let's get started with Thomas Hitoshi Pruiksma.
To Know more about Thomas's Work, please visit -
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