My dirty breath
Cast Out:
Poems of anger and angst
by Basudev Sunani
translated by J P Das
Rupantara, 2009
Modern Oriya verse is said to have begun in the 15th century, when the poet Sarala reproduced Sanskrit epics like The Ramayana and The Mahabharata in Oriya. This was the first translation to take place into Oriya literature. Since then, powerful renderings of this and other works have been published by Oriya poets writing in English, including Jayanta Mahapatra and Niranjan Mohanty. Senior Oriya poets such as Ramakanta Rath and Sitakant Mohapatra have also translated their own works into English. Today, a wide range of Oriya poetry in English can also be found on the Internet, largely thanks to poet Rajendra Kishore Panda, the architect of the Varnamala web anthology*. Now, J P Das has come out with his translation of a selection of a younger Oriya poet Basudev Sunani's works.