Kirthana Kamalakannan recently won the Sri Aurobindo Indian Literary Award, 2022 for her excellent contribution to literature. Cherry book awards believes she is amongst the contemporary stars of Indian literature. We caught up with her for an exclusive interview. Here it is:
What inspires you to keep inspiring people through your literary creations?
William Shakespeare was my all time favourite and my inspiration too. I’ve always wanted to bring back the words of ancient English through my poem to the new generation.
Share about your published books.
I have published few anthologies and for articles too. Anthologies such as The Importance of Mental Health, Poetic, The Winter and The Moonlight. One of the book for articles is The Unreads which has and article called Love- Undefined which was awarded as Best Article. And some of my Tamil poems were published in few more anthologies
What are the qualities of a good author?
According to me a good author is one who inspire his/her readers through the words he /she writes.Their writing style will brand them and gives a new birth for the author to his readers. It presents him as a new personality to the readers.
Share some of your major literary achievements.
I have been a part of National poetry competition twice and awarded as top 100 poets both the times. And Best author for article Love Undefined. Slyvia plath literary award was awarded for my poetry works. Have been part of spellbee and champion for twice. Awarded as Literatary Lieutenant.
What is your advice to young and budding writers who want to publish their debut books?
Many will criticize you when you start your journey and only few will support you. Sometimes no one will be there but believe in yourself. Come forward and face it boldly either the success or the failure. I have seen so many rejections by many publishing companies when I started but I never stopped. I wanted to give my contribution to my literature world. So in simple words, Don’t stop for anyone but just keep going and keep growing.
What kind of books do you love to read? Name any three books apart from your books that you would recommend to all.
First and foremost is Ikigai and second is Ajay K Pandey’s Her last wish and You’re the Best Wife. It has been my all time favourite.
As an author, is it important to write in simple or high end language, and why?
This is actually a tough question and the answer is ambiguous. First when I started my writing my words were so simple that anyone could understand. Even those poem can be read and understood by little kids. But as I got good comments for first work, people also said that you can change your vocabulary. Then I turned it accordingly to poems. So absolutely both is needed but always start from simple and then you’ll learn more to go for high end ones.
In your opinion, how can the decreasing readership trend, especially in India can be stopped from further decline?
More digital libraries can be introduced in today’s world for the new generation. And I’d say parents must inculcate the habit of reading from the childhood of their kids. What we do is what our kids do. We are in 4G and now 5G too. The only thing we often use is mobile. So the kids do the same. Buy colorful books instead of getting mobiles. I’ve seen this thing happened to my very close friends family. There were two households with 2 babies in one and a boy in another one who belonged to same age maybe 1. The first one were always having Tab for watching rhymes for eating time and they’ll eat very calmly while the little boy’s mom always read him story books while feeding. This is where everything starts from. I learnt a very good thing those kids how the readership declines. It’s my request to parents to avoid mobiles, TV and give more books instead. You’re turning you child into Wordsworth and Shakespeare.
