Island writer, poet, and translator Thomas Hitoshi Pruiksma was recently honored in India with the 2025 Ancient Tamil Literature Promotion Award.

He received the award in January at the Chennai International Book Fair from the Chief Minister of the State of Tamil Nadu, Mr. M. K. Stalin, with delegates from 65 different countries present.

The award citation reads, “In recognition of exceptional dedication to translating the classical Tamil text, “Tirukkural,” into English, thereby fostering global appreciation of ancient Tamil literary heritage. Your meticulous translation bridges cultural and linguistic divides, preserving and promoting the philosophical and poetic essence of the Tirukkural for future generations and contributing to cross-cultural understanding.”

At the ceremony, Pruiksma also gave a short speech in Tamil that was picked up by television stations across Tamil Nadu and that continues to make the rounds on YouTube, WhatsApp, Instagram, and Facebook. YouTube views of the speech alone now number more than 350,000. (Watch it at tinyurl.com/mvabcnwd.)

“Now I know what it feels like to be a rock star,” Pruiksma said. “Following the book fair, I found myself getting spotted in public, in bookstores, railway stations, and just walking down the street, not to mention at the events I was invited to attend. During my four-week trip, I must have been in 4,000 selfies!”

Pruiksma’s translation of the “The Kural: Tiruvalluvar’s Tirukkural,” a classical Tamil masterpiece on ethics, power, and love written by the poet Tiruvalluvar sometime between the third and fifth centuries, was published by Beacon Press in 2022 and continues to garner praise around the world.

“It’s humbling and a little overwhelming to be the subject of so much attention,” Pruiksma said. “What I find delightful and moving, however, is that it all has to do with people’s love for the Tamil language and its literature.”

His trip also involved speaking at literary and cultural events across South India and giving a “TN Talk” at the Anna Centenary Library in Chennai, alongside Dr. Aaron Bryant, museum curator at the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture. Bryant pointed out that Gandhi helped shape Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s vision of nonviolence, and Pruiksma noted that the Tirukkural was one of the key works that nourished Gandhi’s thinking.

“There is thus a hidden thread between the Tirukkural, Martin Luther King, Jr., and ways of resisting violence and oppression peacefully and powerfully,” he said.

Pruiksma says that his adventure with the Kural will continue, with a new round of speaking engagements coming up this summer and fall.

For now, though, he’s happy to be at home working in relative anonymity on a novel about music, adolescence, ecology, and time.

“It’s a delight to be back on the island, enjoying the company of the trees and the rain,” he said. “Tiruvalluvar has astonishing verses about rain and I love every one of them.”

Pruiksma’s other books include “The Safety of Edges” (poems), “Give, Eat, and Live: Poems of Avvaiyar” (translated from the Tamil), and “Body and Earth” (with the artist C.F. John).

He speaks and performs widely, mentors writers and translators one-on-one, teaches for the Cozy Grammar series of online video courses, and has received grants and fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, 4Culture, Artist Trust, and the U. S. Fulbright Program.