The First Tamil Novel from Canada to Appear in English Translation (e-book) is V. N. Giritharan’s An Immigrant. The first Canadian Tamil novel to appear in print in English translation is Devakanthan’s Prison of Dreams. –
The English translation of writer Devakanthan’s novel Prison of Dreams has been published by Mawenzi House, translated by Nedra Rodrigo. The launch of this translated work will take place on September 6, 2025, in Scarborough. This announcement was made by the Tamil Arts Collective. Their invitation states: “The publication of the Prison of Dreams quintet marks a historic moment in Canadian Tamil literature, as it is the first book-length translation of a Tamil novelist published in Canada.”
In other words: the publication of the Prison of Dreams quintet in Canada is considered a historic moment in Canadian Tamil literary history, as it is the first full-length Tamil novel to be translated into English and published in Canada.
There is no doubt that Devakanthan’s Prison of Dreams is a monumental novel—a major contribution to Tamil literature. But is it truly the first Canadian Tamil novel to appear in English translation? The answer is no.
Writer V. N. Giritharan’s Tamil novel Kudivaravalan (An Immigrant) was already translated into English by writer Latha Ramakrishnan. Its English version was published earlier as a Kindle e-book on Amazon.
Even before that, the complete English translation of the novel was published on one of V. N. Giritharan’s blogs, Canadian Tamil Literature: Writer V. N. Giritharan’s Corner. Tamil Nadu scholar Dr. Tharani Akhil also published an English critical essay on this novel, titled “An Immigrant: A poignant autobiographical sketch of V. N. Giritharan”, which was likewise featured on the above-mentioned blog. These writings were also published in online journals.
Citing this novel, research papers on refugee literature have been published in English and French. A podcast episode about the novel has also appeared on the V. N. Giritharan Podcast channel on YouTube.
