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{{Short description|Indian translator}}
{{Indian name|Rema|Menon}}
{{Infobox writer
| name = Rema Menon
| image =
| imagesize =
| caption =
| birth_name =
| birth_date = {{birth date and age|1944|09|10}}
| birth_place = [[Kingdom of Cochin]] (present-day [[Thrissur district]], [[Kerala]])
| death_place =
| death_date =
| nationality = Indian
| alma_mater =
| occupation = Translator
| movement =
| notable_works =
| parents = {{ubl|[[Puthezhath Raman Menon]] (father)|Moothedath Janakiyamma (mother)}}<ref>{{cite news |title=പുത്തേഴത്ത് രാമൻ മേനോനും മലയാളഭാഷയും ഭാവനയും |url=https://www.mathrubhumi.com/literature/features/puthezhath-raman-menon-49th-death-anniverasy-1.8925760 |work=Mathrubhumi |date=22 September 2023 |language=en |archive-date=21 January 2024 |access-date=15 September 2025 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240121054626/https://www.mathrubhumi.com/literature/features/puthezhath-raman-menon-49th-death-anniverasy-1.8925760 |url-status=live }}</ref>
| spouse = Narayana Menon
| children = 1
| awards = [[Kerala Sahitya Akademi Award for Translation]] (2017)
| influences =
| signature =
}}
'''Rema Menon''' is an Indian [[Malayalam]] language writer and translator from Kerala. Her translation of [[The Alchemist (novel)|The Alchemist]] into Malayalam was the first translation of that book into any of the Indian languages. For the translation of [[Khaled Hosseini]]'s ''[[And the Mountains Echoed]]'', she won the [[Kerala Sahitya Akademi Award for Translation]] in 2017.

==Biography==
Rema Menon was born in present-day Thrissur district of Kerala on September 10, 1944.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Rema Menon |url=https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/14632327.Rema_Menon |access-date=2025-09-15 |website=www.goodreads.com |archive-date=2025-09-16 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20250916033417/https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/14632327.Rema_Menon |url-status=live }}</ref> Rema is the daughter of noted writer and former Kerala Sahitya Akademi president [[Puthezhath Raman Menon]].<ref name="Samakalika Malayalam">{{Cite web |last=Chandra |first=Rekha |date=2019-06-28 |title=മൊഴിമാറ്റകലയിലെ ആല്‍ക്കെമിസ്റ്റ്: മുതിര്‍ന്ന വിവര്‍ത്തക രമാ മേനോന്റെ എഴുത്തും ജീവിതവും |url=https://www.samakalikamalayalam.com/malayalam-vaarika/essays/%E0%B4%AE%E0%B5%8A%E0%B4%B4%E0%B4%BF%E0%B4%AE%E0%B4%BE%E0%B4%B1%E0%B5%8D%E0%B4%B1%E0%B4%95%E0%B4%B2%E0%B4%AF%E0%B4%BF%E0%B4%B2%E0%B5%86-%E0%B4%86%E0%B4%B2%E0%B5%8D%E0%B4%95%E0%B5%8D%E0%B4%95%E0%B5%86%E0%B4%AE%E0%B4%BF%E0%B4%B8%E0%B5%8D%E0%B4%B1%E0%B5%8D%E0%B4%B1%E0%B5%8D-%E0%B4%AE%E0%B5%81%E0%B4%A4%E0%B4%BF%E0%B4%B0%E0%B5%8D%E0%B4%A8%E0%B5%8D%E0%B4%A8-%E0%B4%B5%E0%B4%BF%E0%B4%B5%E0%B4%B0%E0%B5%8D%E0%B4%A4%E0%B5%8D%E0%B4%A4%E0%B4%95-%E0%B4%B0%E0%B4%AE%E0%B4%BE-%E0%B4%AE%E0%B5%87%E0%B4%A8%E0%B5%8B%E0%B4%A8%E0%B5%8D%E0%B4%B1%E0%B5%86-%E0%B4%8E%E0%B4%B4%E0%B5%81%E0%B4%A4%E0%B5%8D%E0%B4%A4%E0%B5%81%E0%B4%82-%E0%B4%9C%E0%B5%80%E0%B4%B5%E0%B4%BF%E0%B4%A4%E0%B4%B5%E0%B5%81%E0%B4%82-59673.html |access-date=2025-09-13 |website=Samakalika Malayalam |publisher=[[The New Indian Express]] |language=ml}}</ref> Hails from Thrissur district of Kerala, she studied in a [[Malayalam]] medium school in Thrissur.<ref name="Samakalika Malayalam"/> Her father had a large collection of books. This led her to reading literary works at a very young age and then to writing. At first she wrote short stories.

Rema married textile engineer Narayana Menon and moved to Ahmedabad, Gujarat.<ref name="Samakalika Malayalam"/> She joined the school there as a teacher.<ref name="Samakalika Malayalam"/>

When her husband retired, she quit her job and settled in her hometown Thrissur.<ref name="Samakalika Malayalam"/>

==Literary career==
Rema became more active in writing when she was residing in Gujarat with her family.<ref name="Samakalika Malayalam"/> The short stories she wrote were published in publications like Grihalakshmi, Vanitha, and Kumkumam.<ref name="Samakalika Malayalam"/> In 1984, she won the first prize in a short story writing competition organized by Kumkumam.<ref name="Samakalika Malayalam"/> This gave her more confidence to write. Later the stories she wrote published as two collections of short stories, ''Smarakam'' and ''Paithrikam''.<ref name="Samakalika Malayalam"/>

Rema entered literary translation at the age of fifty-six by translating [[The Alchemist (novel)|The Alchemist]] into Malayalam. She first heard about this book when her son Madhu, who had read The Alchemist, told her about it. Rema liked the plot and asked her son to bring her an English version of it. When she finished reading The Alchemist, which she received in this way, Rema felt that this was a book that would inspire any reader, and for a timepass, she took every line of it and wrote it down in Malayalam. Upon knowing this, her daughter-in-law Sabine sent an e-mail message to the author of the novel [[Paulo Coelho]] about it, and then Paulo Coelho called her on the phone and spoke to her.<ref name="Manorama">{{Cite web |title=പൗലോ കൊയ്‌ലോയും രമാ മേനോനും : വിവർത്തനത്തിന്റെ രണ്ടു പതിറ്റാണ്ടും |url=https://www.manoramaonline.com/literature/literaryworld/2021/10/06/rema-menon-opens-up-on-translating-works-of-paulo-coelho-to-malayalam.html |access-date=2025-09-13 |website=Manoramaonline |publisher=[[Malayala Manorama]] |language=ml |archive-date=2021-12-01 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211201102740/https://www.manoramaonline.com/literature/literaryworld/2021/10/06/rema-menon-opens-up-on-translating-works-of-paulo-coelho-to-malayalam.html |url-status=live }}</ref>

It was at that time that Rema Menon went to Thrissur to attend a program of the Kerala Sahitya Akademi. There, when she met Ravi DC, the editor of [[DC Books]], she told him about the translation she had done. Interested in the plot, Ravi agreed to publish the book and subsequently purchased the copyright of 'The Alchemist' and published Malayalam translation of the book in 2000.<ref name="Manorama"/> It was the first translation of that book into any Indian language.<ref name="Vanitha">{{cite web |title=‘പെട്ടെന്നൊരു ദിവസം ഭയങ്കരമായി കൂർക്കംവലി തുടങ്ങി, പരിശോധനയിൽ കണ്ടത് കാൻസർ’: എഴുത്തിനെ കരുത്താക്കിയ രമാ മേനോൻ |url=https://www.vanitha.in/news/justin/2024/08/22/rama-menon-writer-translator-literary-life-story.html |website=Vanitha.in |publisher=[[Vanitha]] |language=ml}}</ref> 48 editions of The Malayalam Alchemist have been released so far.<ref name="Samakalika Malayalam"/>

When her son got a job transfer and was living in London, Coelho invited him to a book launch event in London, and gave him his novels ''[[The Fifth Mountain]]'' and ''Miss Prim and the Devil'', saying that they were his gift to his mother Rema.<ref name="Manorama"/> She read and loved these two novels and translated them into Malayalam as ''Fifth Mountain'' and ''Chekuthanum penkitavum''.<ref name="Manorama"/> They were also published by DC Books. As the number of Coelho fans in Kerala increased, DC commissioned her to translate two more books. That is how ''Accrayil Ninnum Kandedutha Likhithangal'' (translation of the ''Manuscript found in Accra'') and ''Alep'' (translation of ''[[Aleph (novel)|Alep]]'') were published.<ref name="Manorama"/> When she felt that the later works of Coelho were not as interesting as the books she had first read, she did not undertake any of Coelho's books for translation, even though she was asked to do so.<ref name="Manorama"/> Instead, Rema started translating other books.

Rema Menon has published Malayalam translations of over 60 notable English literary works.<ref name="Mat Eng">{{Cite web |date=2021-09-28 |title=A translator removes the boundaries of language : Rema Menon |url=https://englisharchives.mathrubhumi.com/specials/world-translation-day-2021/remamenontranslatorkerala-eb1f1002 |access-date=2025-09-13 |website=[[Mathrubhumi]] |language=en}}</ref> Notable books among them include translations of Afghan-American writer [[Khaled Hosseini]]'s ''[[The Kite Runner]]'' (as ''Pattam Parathunnavar''), ''[[A Thousand Splendid Suns]]'' (as ''Thilakkamarnna Ayiram Sooryanmar'') and ''[[And the Mountains Echoed]]'' (as ''Parvathangalum Matolikollukunnu''), translations of works such as ''Flight'' and ''Runners'' by Polish writer [[Olga Tokarczuk]], who won the Nobel Prize in 2018, [[Mao's Last Dancer (book)|Mao's Last Dancer]] by Chinese writer [[Li Cunxin]], the Tibetan work Polo Mountain (Alay), ''[[Siddhartha (novel)|Siddhartha]]'' by [[Hermann Hesse]], ''[[A Passage to India]]'' by [[E. M. Foster]], [[Svetlana Alexievich]]'s ''War's Unwomanly Face'', [[Marieke Lucas Rijneveld]]'s ''The Discomfort of Evening'', Gandhiji's ''[[The Story of My Experiments with Truth]]'', and spiritual works by many people such as the [[Dalai Lama]], [[Swami Rama]], [[Jaggi Vasudev]], etc.<ref name="Manorama"/><ref name="Mat Eng"/><ref name="Vanitha"/>

She is currently translating the South Korean novel ''A River in Darkness''.<ref name="Samakalika Malayalam"/>

==Awards and honors==
Rema Menon won the [[Kerala Sahitya Akademi Award for Translation]] in 2017 for her book ''Parvathangalum Matolikollukunnu'', the translation of Afghan-American novelist [[Khaled Hosseini]]'s ''[[And the Mountains Echoed]]''.<ref name="Samakalika Malayalam"/>

==References==
{{reflist}}
{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Menon, Rema}}
[[Category:Recipients of the Kerala Sahitya Akademi Award]]
[[Category:Translators to Malayalam]]
[[Category:Living people]]
[[Category:People from Thrissur district]]
[[Category:1944 births]]
[[Category:21st-century Indian translators]]
[[Category:Malayali people]]

Rema Menon - Revision history

SanglapGeographer: creating info