Academics
Speech is not silver and silence is not gold. Gold is instead the right amount of speech and silence. This is how Martin Kampchen overturns a popular saying and probes into the meaning of speech and silence beyond cliched thinking. In curt, pointed literary texts the author describes everyday activities waking, breathing, greeting, offering praise, remembering, sleeping or listening. He breaks open the thoughtless routine with which we normally carry them out, trying to discover their authentic value. Drawing from the wisdom of Indian and Christian contemplative thought, Kampchen however firmly relates his texts to our 21st century’s search for a simple, truthful life style.
Martin Kampchen was born in Germany in 1948 and has been living in India for the last 40 years. Widely travelled, even as student, his education spread over the continents, from the US to Vienna and Paris, and from Chennai to Santiniketan. He has a PhD each in Literature and Comparative Religion. An acclaimed journalist, translator and editor he has written and published extensively, in both German and English, on Indian culture and is today considered an important cultural link between India and Germany. Since 1980, Santiniketan has been his base from where he has translated the Shri Ramakrishna Kathamrita as well as Rabindranath Tagore's poems, from Bengali to German. His book Simply Do It: Do It Simply was published in 2013, by Niyogi Books.
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