Dominic Jeeva
Dominic Jeeva edits a monthly journal on literature for more than four decades, called "Mallikai" and also the publisher of many books, an author of many books and a writer of short stories, though he cannot boast of an academic background, he made his way to be one of the topmost writers in the Tamil World.
In the field of writing in Tamil, both in Tamilnadu and Sri Lanka, there are at least three people who have ' Jeeva' as part of their names: P. Jeevanandam, an orator, writer and Marxist politician in India, Dominc Jeeva and Anthony Jeeva. He celebrated his 77th birthday on June 27, 2004. The fact that even writers, academics and others who do not necessarily subscribe to his brand of Marxist ideology were present on the occasion was an indicator that he is respected by everybody for whatever he is worth.
He released three publications on the occasion. Dominic Jeeva edits a monthly journal on literature for more than four decades. It's called Mallikai. He is also the publisher of many books, an author of many books and a writer of short stories. Although he cannot boast of an academic background, he made his way to be one of the topmost writers in Tamil.
Some of his works are translated into Sinhala too. Coming from a then downtrodden caste in Jaffna, he established himself as a person to be emulated. His search for knowledge and his battered experiences have made him a man of real stuff an, ' unacknowledged professor ' taking into account some of his ideas found in many of his works. He is a voracious reader and a lover of the humankind. His moral indignation on several social and personal issues is understandable. The most important thing in his career is the publication of his semi-autobiography he had published in Tamil turned into English.
The title of the book is Undrawn Portrait for Unwritten Poetry. The translation is made by Kandiah Kumarasamy (Nallaikumaran), a Lankan now living in Melbourne, Australia.
The book is interesting in that it shows how a translator could think in his mother tongue and just put the ideas just as he thinks without any embellishment or colouring. In that respect, this work would be a classic piece of understanding 'Literatures in English '. The variety of English as displayed in this book would please any reader of writing in English. As for the content of the book, it is a rich endorsement of the writer Jeeva's steady progress as a hairdresser to present heights. The writer Dominic Jeeva had totally forgotten once, that he came to be known to the non-Tamil speaking readers through a review of his book Pathukai, a collection of short stories, which won the first Sri Lankan Sahitiya Academy Award for Tamil fiction in 1964 in Sri Lanka.