Madras HC defers Sahitya award to Murugan's 'One Part Woman'

Controversy surrounding writer Perumal Murugan's novel 'Mathorubhagan' continues as the Madras High Court has deferred grant of the prestigious Sahitya Akademi award to its English translation ('One Part Woman') till January 8, 2018.
"The court passed a limited interim order on Friday to the effect that grant of the Sahitya Akademi award 2016 to 'One Part Woman' is deferred till January 8," advocate SV Pravin Rathinam said.
Rathinam represented Kongu Kalvi Valarchi Arakattalai, the organisation which opposed conferring the award to the book in the high court.
According to Rathinam, a division bench of Justices M Sathyanarayanan and M Sundar passed the interim order.

This apart, notices have also been ordered to the Akademi, author Murugan and English translator Aniruddhan Vasudevan returnable by January 8.
"Our primary contention was that the English version of the novel was not an exact translation of the original Tamil book, which makes it ineligible for Sahitya Akademi award, as per Akademi rules," Rathinam said.

"According to the rules, the primary condition for considering a book for the award under the category is that it must be an exact translation of the original book. But it is not so in this case," he contended.
"Moreover, most of the jury members, who were in the panel which selected the novel for the award were earlier supporting the author of the novel, when it was criticised for controversies. This was also against the rules," Rathinam added.

Sahitya Akademi had announced the award to 'One Part Woman' in April this year.