Raja Rajeswari Setha Raman


Raja Rajeswari Setha Raman is a Malaysian poet and translator. Tamil by ethnicity. She is also a lecturer of the Teacher Education Institute, Malay Language Campus.

Brief biography

She was born in a teacher's family. After graduating from an English high school in Bagan-Serai, she entered in 1994 the Pedagogical College of Sultan Abdul Halim, graduating it in 1986. In 1986-1988, she studied at the Faculty of Modern Languages and Communication of Universiti Putra Malaysia. In 2005, she got there also master's degree on a thesis about stories by Uthaya Sankar SB, and in 2015 completed her doctorate at the Academy of Malay Studies, University of Malaya. In 2015, she received a diploma of professional translator from the Union of Translators of Malaysia.
In 1995-2007, she worked as a teacher of Malay and English in a number of schools in Kuala Lumpur, in 2007-2016, she was a lecturer of Malay at the Pedagogical Institute of Malaysia. She made presentations at seminars and conferences in Malaysia and abroad. She is a member of the Commission of the Ministry of Education for writing programs for literature for secondary schools.

Creativity

She is the only non-Malay who writes poetry in Malay. Her poems are published in leading newspapers and magazines, including the authoritative literary magazine "Dewan Sastera" published by the Institute of Language and Literature as well as in numerous collective collections of poetry. She published two author's collections "When the Flower Blooms" and "In the same language".
In the center of attention of the poet is not only the beauty of her native country, but also social problems, patriotism, ecology, the struggle of oppressed peoples for their independence. Her poetry was translated into English, Bengali, Spanish, German, Portuguese, Thai and Tamil. Several poems became texts for some popular songs: "The Art of Embroidery", "Beloved" and "Fate of a Woman".
He regularly recites her poems on monthly poetry readings of the National Union of Writers of Malaysia, took part in international poetry festivals in Bangladesh, Singapore, Indonesia, Nicaragua.
As a literary critic she publishes articles with analysis of the works of Malaysian writers and poets in newspapers and magazines in Malaysia. In her opinion, K. S. Maniam has migrated to the United States, and Rani Manicka to the United Kingdom, purely for the purpose of being accepted and recognised at the international level.
She is the Honorary Secretary of the "Great Malay Nusantara", a member of the Executive Committee of the National Union of Writers of Malaysia and the Union of Writers of Selangor, a member of the Union of Translators of Malaysia, the Union of Cultural Activists of Perak, the World Congress of Poets.

Awards