Tamil writer Yuma Vasuki on why children’s literature in Tamil needs more magic

It is Thanvi’s birthday and her parents wait by her bedside to wish her as soon as she wakes up. But they do not know that they have company in the form of a sparrow, a lion, an elephant calf, a puppy, and a rainbow, all gathered around to wish her. The heart-warming short story has plenty of magic, and also highlights disappearing forests and changing landscapes.

It is part of an anthology of Tamil stories for children titled Thanviyin Piranthanal (Thanvi’s Birthday) by Books for Children, an imprint of Bharathi Puthakalayam that won the writer Yuma Vasuki the Bal Sahitya Puraskar for 2024. This is the author’s second award from the Sahitya Akademi; he won earlier for his translation of Malayalam writer OV Vijayan’s Khasakkinte Itihasam in 2017.

“Magic is important,” says the Pattukottai-based writer, who is an Art teacher at a Government High School in Sendankadu village in Thanjavur district. Yuma Vasuki, who spent most of his life in Chennai, was previously with New Century Book House and Bharathi Puthakalayam, working on translation projects. He used to head Dinamani’s children’s supplement Siruvar Mani.

The 58-year-old has been writing poetry, novels, and short stories from the late 1980s, but has only recently forayed into children’s literature. He has spent several years poring over books for children from across the world, and closer home from Kerala as part of his translation projects. He eventually decided to write for children, inspired by the many detective novels and magazines such as Bommai Veedu, Poonthalir, and Mani Bala, he grew up reading.

Yuma Vasuki feels that the children’s literature scene in Tamil is “weak” when compared to languages such as English, Russian, and Malayalam. “I’ve always been drawn to the writing style and narration of Malayalam children’s writers,” he says, adding that in Kerala, there is a collective consciousness to offer children quality literature, as well as an interest in helping them develop into wholesome beings.

“This is lacking in Tamil,” he feels: “We don’t pay attention to children and their world. With a 2,000-year-old tradition, Tamil should have been able to produce an excellent body of work for children. But that is not the case.” He appreciates the Kerala Government’s Institute of Children’s literature and the magazine Thaliru. “We do not have such an institute here; it is only last year that the Tamil Nadu State Government started bringing out magazines for children in Government schools,” he says, hoping that the situation changes in the coming years.

Apart from Thanviyin Piranthanal, Yuma Vasuki has written two other books for children, brought out by Thannaram Publications. He is a fan of the work of Latin American writer Juan Rulfo and Gabriel García Márquez, particularly the magic realism genre. “This is a style children will be drawn to,” he says.

Yuma Vasuki is now working on two political novels. The writer says that observing children, their world, and their little gestures and movements is second nature to him. “This is something that is part of my soul,” he says: “It happens spontaneously.” As for Thanvi, she is his wife’s niece who lives in Bahrain. “I wrote the story for her birthday,” he says. Thanvi though, is not old enough to read it yet.