Breaking Language Barriers: Perumal Murugan's Literary Journey

Time of India

25-04-2025

Listen here:
Perumal Murugan on Writing Across Genres
Excerpts from the interview:
Q: How and why did you decide to to start writing?
A:
He basically says he doesn't know how to answer this question. He doesn't know how he started writing. In our tradition we say you shouldn't actually research into origin or end of something. He says in his family, all of them are kind of illiterate. They can't read or write. So he doesn't know where he picked this habit of writing from.
Q: Do you write and edit regularly or do you just write and then send it for publication?
A:
It's a practice to do editing for all that he writes. He does editing at least two or three times for each of his works. So initially, especially if it's fiction or poetry, his wife will read it first, and he'll also send it to some friends. He'll take their opinions and then incorporate the changes in his work. But if it's a non-fictional essay, he finishes it in one go.
Q: Recently I came across an academic writing about your work and they insisted on calling you a
dialect writer
. Would you agree with that definition of your work?
A:
There is politics behind calling languages like Tamil as regional languages and calling his kind of writings as dialect writing. And anybody writing in Tamil will have to write in their own dialects because Tamil has very rich dialects. But he says a language or a work of literature cannot be confined because of its dialect or its language to reach to a wider audience. So he doesn't accept the criticism. He doesn't see himself as a dialect writer.
Q: How do you manage to move between your fiction and non-fiction writing?
A:
His work chooses its orientation. He says sometimes he feels that a certain thing should be only told as poetry. Certain things only should be told as a short story or something should be told as an essay. But after writing, sometimes when he reads it again, he thinks that it could have been better as a short story or some other genre. He recently wrote something on transgenders. It was an essay. And when he finished reading it, he thought it would have made a better short story.
Q: Your works include literary fiction, short stories, fables, parables, novels, non-fiction, narrative non-fiction, memoirs, essays, and now most recently, script writing for a
graphic novel
. How was that experience?
A:
He loves writing, trying different forms of writing. He's also written dialogues for a film and he's worked with T M Krishna to write kirtanas also. He loves experimenting with different forms of writing. And this graphic novel is a favourite novel of his. And he wrote a foreword when it was published recently. So when he was asked to write the script for this graphic novel, he liked the idea as he already knows the novel very well. So he wanted to try writing a script for the novel.
Q: You teach and you write and you travel extensively. How do you find the time to write?
A:
He loves writing when he is at home and he loves writing in the mornings. He spends three hours every morning from 6 to 9 to write. He doesn't write when he is traveling. Or maybe when he is on a writer's residency, then he can write.
Q: Do you keep a translator's sensibility in your mind and recommend them for a particular work or do you just let that be a decision of the publisher?
A:
He doesn't choose the translators. The publishers suggest translators and publishers who publish him in English. But there are times when he wants a particular translator to translate his work. And there are times when the translators have expressed interest to work, to work with him.