Portal:India/Today's selected article/March 12, 2006

O. V. Vijayan was an Indian author and cartoonist, an important figure in modern Malayalam literature. Vijayan wrote his first short story, "Tell Father Gonsalves", in 1953. He went on to write five novels and translated some of his own work into English. His first and most famous novel, Khasakinte Ithihasam, tells the story of a teacher named Ravi dispatched to a newly created school in remote Khasak. He brought about a sea-change in Malayalam literature with this novel: so much so that it can be divided into pre-Khasak and post-Khasak eras, named after Vijayan's pioneering first novel. The former era was romantic and formal; the latter is modernist, post-modernist and post-post-modernist, with tremendous experimentation in style and content. In a way, Vijayan released Malayalam fiction writing from the shackles of tradition. He wrote many other short stories, essays and satire. He is also a cartoonist. The famous malayalam poet OV Usha is his sister. In 2003, he was awarded the Padma Bhushan. Vijayan struggled with Parkinson's Disease for 10 years and finally sucummed to organ failure in a Hyderabad hospital at age 75. (more...)