You Cannot Turn Away

by R. Cheran, Chelva Kanaganayakam (Translator)

This book provides, for the first time, a bilingual edition of forty poems by R Cheran. Written over a period of three decades, the poems cover a range of experiences, including love, war, despair, hope, and diaspora. Cheran is considered one of the finest contemporary poets in Tamil, and his poetry is read widely in North America, Europe, and South Asia. Both modernist and unfailingly lyrical, his work is a remarkable blend of tradition and innovation. The forty poems in this volume have been translated and introduced by Chelva Kanaganayakam.

Genres: Poetry

169 pages, Paperback

First published September 1, 2011

About the author

Cheran Rudhramoorthy [Tamil : சேரன் உருத்திரமூர்த்தி] (b. 1960, Alaveddy [alaveddi], Sri Lanka ) is a Tamil poet, playwright, journalist and professor. He is the author of more than 15 books in Tamil, and of three plays in English. He also co-edited an anthology of Tamil political poetry. In his works, he deals with the themes of identity, ethnicity, nationalism , emigration and violence.

Cheran has received several awards for literature and human rights , including the English PEN, Freedom to Write Award (2013), the University of Toronto International Poetry Award (2007), the Human Rights Witness Award, Montreal , 1998 ), and the Sri Lankan National Prize for Best Poetry (1994).

His works have been translated into 16 languages ​​including English , Arabic , Bengali , Chinese , French , German , Spanish , Indonesian , Japanese, Kannada , Malayalam , Dutch , Sinhala , Swedish, and Telugu .