Dev Virahsawmy was born in 1942. After attending schools in his native Mauritius he studied literature and linguistics in Edinburgh (1963-67). As a writer in many genres, all his literary work is in his mother tongue, the national Mauritian language, which he calls Morisien. He has written over 1,000 poems, 24 plays, 19 short stories, 5 novellas and a novel. His play, Li, written in 1972 while he was a political prisoner, received the 1982 Radio France International prize. Dev Virahsawmy is equally prolific as a translator. His many translations into Morisien include: The Bhagavad Gita; Shakespeare’s King Lear, Hamlet, Macbeth, Much Ado About Nothing and Julius Caesar; George Bernard Shaw’s Pygmalion; Molière’s Tartuffe; Saint-Exupery’s Le Petit Prince; Heinrich Hoffmann’s Der Struwwelpeter; and Wilhelm Busch’s Max und Moritz. He is currently cooperating with the Mauritius Bible Society to produce a translation of The New Testament and The Book of Psalms. Dev Virahsawmy has also been a Member of Parliament in Mauritius. His main concern throughout both his literary and political careers has been the advocacy of the Mauritian language as a medium for literary creativity and as the foundation of universal literacy in education. His principal works, including translations, have been assembled into thirty PDF volumes and can be downloaded from his main website, www.boukiebanane.orange.mu/. See also www.dev-virahsawmy.org.
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