Though the 2381 poems of classical Tamil has 473 poets, no single poet dominates the literary landscape as much as Kapilar. Even after pruning the number of poems attributed to him to a credible 235, his contribution is roughly one-tenth of the total. Praised by his own contemporaries and later commentators alike, Kapilar’s skill in crafting poems of love, war and wisdom remains unsurpassed. His life is covered in legends and the turbulent events of his period had got him playing the roles of philosopher, counsellor and also a match-maker. He had hobnobbed with some of the most powerful kings of his time and had spoken his mind to them. A single volume of Kapilar’s poems in translation, done in lucid and idiomatic English, is a welcome addition to the corpus of world’s greatest poetry.

Nazir is a poet in his own right and has published a book of poems entitled Mamallapuram and Other Poems. With the publication of Ainkurunuru, an anthology of 500 short love poems of classical Tamil, he has also proved himself to be a translator of repute. His poems have appeared in Indian Literature (Sahitya Akademi’s bimonthly journal), Reading Hour and nthposition. He has written reviews of classical Tamil translations to Transfire, a literary quarterly. He runs a blog for poetry and translation at nazirali.wordpress.com.

He is at present working as Associate Professor of English, Kanchi Mamunivar Centre for PG Studies, Pondicherry.