Kannan Sundaram, managing director and editor of Tamil Nadu’s Kalachuvadu Publications, was presented with the Chevalier de l’Ordre national du Mérite – a French order of merit with membership decided by the President of France – by Thierry Mathou, ambassador of France to India, at the French Embassy in New Delhi on 5 June 2023. The award was conferred in recognition of Kalachuvadu’s work to improve the relationship between the French and Indian publishing sectors.
Presenting the award, Thierry Mathou, ambassador of France to India, said, “Under Kannan Sundaram’s guidance and commitment, Kalachuvadu Publications has published numerous titles from women, marginalized communities as well as foreign writers. He has published the work of acclaimed authors in Tamil literature such as Perumal Murugan (who has won over the hearts of French readers), Sundara Ramaswamy (whose work often explores social and political themes), Ambai (a prominent feminist writer) and Salma (an acclaimed poet and writer with works that focus on women’s experiences and societal issues). In doing so, Kalachuvadu has played a crucial role in bringing their voices to a wider audience.”
Kalachuvadu is a leading publishing house in south India, known for its commitment to literary excellence. Sundaram is a well-known Indian publisher in the French publishing circles and a point of reference for the French Institute in India in terms of publishing strategies, he said. The French institute in India recently invited Sundaram to Delhi for a seminar on the Tamil publishing market addressed to a delegation of French publishers and the International Bureau of French Publishing (BIEF).
Since 2011, Kannan Sundaram has curated and published various genres, including fiction and non-fiction, from classical masterpieces to contemporary works by French authors. He succeeded in introducing Tamil readers to French best-sellers or iconic books, Mathou said.
“He transported them into the mind of a teenager vacationing on the French Riviera with Bonjour Tristesse by Françoise Sagan; he made them discover rural France and the French working class throughout the 20th century with the work of the Nobel Prize for Literature Annie Ernaux and he will soon immerse the Tamil readers in a story of love, identity and existential philosophy as he is about to publish the Tamil translation of L’Insoutenable Légèreté de l’être by Milan Kundera,” he added.
“Translation is vital because it bridges our cultural and linguistic divides, enabling readers to appreciate the richness of global literature. Translating works from one language to another preserves the literary heritage of diverse cultures and enriches the intellectual landscape too,” Mathou added.
Sundaram expressed his thoughts on receiving the award. “I am deeply honored by the insignia of Chevalier conferred on me today. This year marks the 30th anniversary of Kalachuvadu Publications. In all these 30 years, I have worked with joy, passion, commitment, and fulfillment. This honor conferred today was an opportunity for me to recall with gratitude what a terrific ride it has been for me. The opportunity to work with great publishers from India and internationally, with authors from across the world, to work with a committed team of colleagues, the joy of putting together many great manuscripts and seeing them published, the adventure of traveling to new places, meeting people of different nations, races, tongues, to talk to them, understand their perspective and read their literature.”
More than any other state of India, the Chevalier insignia is most popular in Tamil Nadu. “When the folks of Tamil Nadu congratulated me on being conferred this honor, they also wished me for winning the Chevalier Sivaji Ganesan award,” he added.
Explaining the context, Sundaram said, “For Tamils, Sivaji Ganesan, the thespian movie star, was the epitome of acting. Yet after 40 years of a very robust acting career, Shivaji Ganesan was not honored nationally with the best actor award. He was aggrieved and the Tamils felt a deep sense of solidarity with him. As if to rub salt in this wound, he was given a national award for the best supporting actor in 1993,”
“It was in this context that the Chevalier knighthood was announced for Sivaji Ganesan, probably the first to an Indian actor, in 1995. And he flaunted it up to the hilt. Till then, in the public space, he was always referred to by the honorific Nadikal Thilakam, meaning the crowning glory of actors. He gave that up in favor of the Chevalier. Now the best actor award given in his name is called the Chevalier Sivaji Ganesan Best Actor Award. A street named after him is the Chevalier Sivaji Ganesan Street. Since then, many Tamils have been honored with the Chevalier, including megastar Kamal Hassan. But interestingly, the Chevalier is indelibly identified in the public space with Sivaji Ganesan alone,” he added.
The basic principles of the French Republic – Liberty, Equality, Fraternity – are more relevant for us than ever before, he said.
In an exclusive interaction with Indian Printer & Publisher later, Sundaram said, “I am delighted to receive the Chevalier de l’Ordre national du Mérite. I have worked with the French publishing industry for nearly 15 years now. This award is a recognition of the many books we have published from French into Tamil and the authors that we have promoted from France and worked with the French publishing industry in many other ways. For publishers, there are not many awards and recognition, mostly for authors and publishing houses. This is one of the rare occasions where the publisher gets recognized. It came completely out of the blue – there was no expectation or anticipation. I was not even aware that this award is given to publishers. I was pleasantly surprised and shocked when this email came announcing this award.”
Kalachuvadu Publications won the Publisher of the Year 2023 at the recent Publishing Next Industry Awards. About the recognition, he said, “Kalachuvadu Publications first won the award in 2018 and received the award for the second time in 2023. We are happy because most of the years, the award has gone to English publishers and apart from Kalachuvadu, no other Indian language publishers have received the award so far. It’s a distinction and we are very happy to have received it twice.”
