Nileena Abraham (née Dutta) (born 27 July 1925) is a writer and translator from

Kerala Kerala ( ; ) is a state on the Malabar Coast of India. It was formed on 1 November 1956, following the passage of the States Reorganisation Act, by combining Malayalam-speaking regions of the erstwhile regions of Cochin, Malabar, South ...

, India. She was born in

Pabna Pabna ( bn, পাবনা) is a city of Pabna District, Bangladesh and the administrative capital of the eponymous Pabna District. It is on the north bank of the Padma River and has a population of about . Etymology * According to the histo ...

. After earning master's degrees in

Bengali language Bengali ( ), generally known by its endonym Bangla (, ), is an Indo-Aryan language native to the Bengal region of South Asia. It is the official, national, and most widely spoken language of Bangladesh and the second most widely spoken o ...

, political science and history, she moved to Kerala and worked as a professor of Bengali at Maharaja's College, Ernakulam and as the Dr. Suniti Kumar Chatterji Professor of Bengali at International School of Dravidian Linguistics,

Thiruvananthapuram Thiruvananthapuram (; ), also known by its former name Trivandrum (), is the capital of the Indian state of Kerala. It is the most populous city in Kerala with a population of 957,730 as of 2011. The encompassing urban agglomeration populati ...

Career

She has translated more than eight Bengali works into

Malayalam Malayalam (; , ) is a Dravidian languages, Dravidian language spoken in the Indian state of Kerala and the union territories of Lakshadweep and Puducherry (union territory), Puducherry (Mahé district) by the Malayali people. It is one of 2 ...

and ten Malayalam works into Bengali. She was awarded the

Sahitya Akademi Translation Prize Sahitya Akademi Translation Prize or Sahitya Akademi Prize for Translation is a literary honour in India, presented by Sahitya Akademi, India's National Academy of Letters, given to "outstanding translations of creative and critical works" in 24 m ...

in 1989 for Bengali translation of ''Pathummayude Adu and Balyakalasakhi'', a collection of Malayalam short stories by

Vaikom Muhammad Basheer Vaikom Muhammad Basheer (21 January 1908 – 5 July 1994), popularly referred to as Beypore Sulthan, was a writer of Malayalam literature. He was a writer, humanist, freedom fighter, novelist and short story writer, noted for his path-breaking, ...

. She lives in Ernakulam and is married to Abraham Tharyan.Sahithyakara Directory ; Kerala Sahithya Academy,Thrissur

Partial bibliography

Translations into Malayalam

* ''Arogyaniketanm'' * ''Ezhu Chuvadu'' * ''Irumpazhikal''(In 2 parts) * ''Midhunalagnam'' * ''Avan Varunnu''

References

Malayalam-language writers 20th-century Indian translators 1925 births Recipients of the Sahitya Akademi Award in Malayalam Living people Academic staff of Maharaja's College, Ernakulam Writers from Kochi 20th-century Indian women writers Women writers from Kerala Indian women translators Recipients of the Sahitya Akademi Prize for Translation {{india-translator-stub