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Wednesday, Dec 21, 2005

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National

Building cultural bridges across oceans

Staff Reporter

Anthology of Latin American and Caribbean poems released by litterateur Karan Singh

— Photo: Shanker Chakravarty

PROMOTING TIES THROUGH POETRY: Member of Parliament Karan Singh with Milena Santana Ramirez, Ambassador of Venezuela (left) at the release of a poetry anthology in New Delhi on Monday. Jorge Heine, Ambassador of Chile (right) looks on.

NEW DELHI: It was an occasion to build bridges of culture across several oceans at the release of a bilingual "Anthology of Latin American and Caribbean Poems" here on Monday.

The first anthology of its kind to be published in Hindi, it was a gift of sorts for this festive season. "The best way to understand a civilisation is to try and read the poetry that it has produced. It is a welcome move that the poetry has been translated into Hindi, which is our national language. Good translations are hard to get even in this country and much of Tamil and Telugu literature has not been translated properly," said the eminent man of letters and Member of Parliament, Karan Singh, after releasing the book.

Much in common

"India has a good relationship with these areas, but the cultural interaction is not satisfactory. There are only three cultural centres. While there is a distance between these regions, there is much in common. I think this anthology is a small, significant step for understanding compassion and discovering links between human beings," said Dr. Karan Singh.

The anthology has been brought out by the Group of Latin American and Caribbean Nations (GRULAC) in co-ordination with Sahitya Akademi and Reliance Industries. The volume, edited by a team of translators from Jawaharlal Nehru University, contains 103 poems from 16 Latin American and Caribbean nations in Spanish and Hindi.

"Delhi is not only the political capital of the country, but also the academic and intellectual capital. The anthology has contemporary voices, and while people may miss established poets their works are readily available in India. It is often said that Latin Americans and Indians share a sense of warmth and family life. As poetry is a window unto the soul, it is a glimpse of many passions cutting across Latin America and the Caribbean," said the Ambassador of the Republic of Chile, Jorge Heine.

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