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Biography

My main interests are Sanskrit literature, poetics, the Paninian tradition, and philosophy. I came to these interests from the Western classical world, particularly Greek literature, and an interest in the “High Moderns,” particularly James Joyce and Ezra Pound. The life and work of Gustave Flaubert was another major interest of my undergraduate years. From the world of Sanskrit literature and thought I have stepped out into the world of contemporary Hindi literature, and I have particularly enjoyed indulging in Urdu literature on occasion. Throughout all these wanderings the translation process and the nature and power of the word has been a major motivation as has been the problem of how different societies and cultures “define” literary “beauty” and “excellence” differently.

Current work includes a selection and translation of short stories by the Hindi writer Mudra Rakshas, and a translation of the Harṣacarita of Bāṇa for the Murty Classical Library of India.

On the subject of translation a particularly good and brief article, by A.K. Ramanujan, is at https://archive.org/details/three-hundred-Ramayanas-A-K-Ramanujan

Selected Publications

• The Style of Bāṇa. Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1985.
• Nearness and Respective Correlation: A history of the interpretations ofAṣṭādhyāyī 6.1.77: iko yaṇ aci. Wiesbaden: Otto Harrassowitz Verlag, 1995.
• The Hunted. Translation of the novel by Mudra Rakshasa Dandavidhan. Delhi: Penguin Books India, 1992.
• Rage, Revelry and Romance: Selected Short Stories of Uday Prakash. Delhi: Srishti Publishers, 2003.
• Short Shorts Long Shots, short stories by Uday Prakash. Delhi: Katha, 2004.
• Translation of The Perplexity of Hariya Hercules, by Manohar Shyam Joshi. Delhi: Penguin, 2009.
• https://mudrarakshas.info, a website of some of the shorter work by the Hindi author Mudrarakshas.