Jayasree Kalathil | |
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| Nationality | Indian |
| Alma mater | |
| Occupation(s) | Writer, translator, researcher, activist |
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Jayasree Kalathil is an Indian writer, translator, mental health researcher and activist. She is known for her work in the area of mental health activism as well as for her translations of Malayalam works, The Diary of a Malayali Madman and Moustache, the former winning Crossword Book Award and the latter, the JCB Prize for Literature, both in 2020. Her latest work, Valli, A Novel was among the works shortlisted for the JCB Prize for Literature in 2022.
Jayasree Kalathil was born in Kottakkal, a town in Malappuram district of the south Indian state of Kerala. [1] After completing college education at Farook College, Kozhikode, and the Department of English, University of Calicut, she pursued her research at the English and Foreign Languages University, Hyderabad under the guidance of the noted activist and writer, Susie Tharu, which earned her a doctoral degree. [2] Before moving to the UK, she worked as a researcher at Bapu Trust for Research on Mind & Discourse, Pune, Infochange India, Pune, and as a research fellow on mental health at Anveshi Research Centre for Women's Studies, Hyderabad. [2]
Jayasree Kalathil lives in London. [2]
Kalathil has been involved with the international psychiatric survivors movement since the 1990s and her initial work in this area was around women's mental distress and its representation in literature and cinema. [3] At 'Bapu Trust', Pune, she served as the founding editor of Aaina, the first Indian newsletter dedicated to mental health advocacy. [4] After moving to the UK, she worked as a researcher at the Mental Health Media, London, and the Centre for Mental Health, London. In 2007, she set up the virtual collective, Survivor Research, a platform for research, activism and advocacy to highlight and challenge the institutional racism embedded in psychiatric practice and knowledge. [5] She has worked as a consultant policy advisor at the Afiya Trust, London, an organization combatting racial inequalities in health, simultaneously managing 'Catch-a-Fiya', a national network of mental health service users and survivors from racially minoritised communities in the UK, and the National BME Mental Health Advocacy Project. She also co-chaired the Social Perspectives Network from 2009 to 2012, and served as the editor of 'Open Mind', a mental health magazine during 2010–2012. [2]
In 2012, Kalathil was one of the four coordinators of 'The Inquiry into the ‘Schizophrenia’ Label', [6] a campaign which aimed to question the usefulness of ‘schizophrenia’ as a diagnosis and medical condition, and investigated the impact this diagnosis on people's lives. [7] She was one of the founding editors, with Jhilmil Breckenridge, of 'Mad in Asia Pacific', an online platform, founded in 2018, for voices from the Asia-Pacific region that offer a critical examination and rethinking of mental health, madness and disability. [8] She is also involved with a project mapping the knowledge produced by psychiatric survivors and persons with psychosocial disabilities. [2]
As a survivor researcher, Kalathil has written about the experiences of people at the intersection of madness and racism. [9] Her study, Recovery and Resilience, explored the personal experiences of mental distress and recovery of Black and Asian women in the UK, narrated through life story narrative interviews, [10] and Dancing to Our Own Tunes, [11] a review done by her, deals with the experiences of Black and Asian mental health service users within the survivor movement and its user involvement spaces; [12] the report subsequently came up for discussion in the UK Parliament. [13] She has also co-authored a textbook, Values and Ethics in Mental Health: An Exploration for Practice. [14] [15]
Kalathil is the author of The Sackclothman, [16] a book for children [17] under the 'Different Tales' project, [18] which has since been translated into Indian languages such as Hindi, [19] Telugu [20] and Malayalam. [21] [22] In 2019, HarperCollins published her work, Diary of a Malayali Madman, the translation of five novellas, written by Malayalam writer, N. Prabhakaran. [23] The publishing company contracted her again for the translation of Meesha, a controversial novel written by S. Hareesh which was subsequently published under the title, Moustache in 2020. [24] [25]
In 2011, the Mental Health Foundation selected Kalathil's work on the Recovery and Resilience project for the Janice Sinson Research Prize. [2] She received the Crossword Book Award in 2020, for Diary of a Malayali Madman, the translation of N. Prabhakaran's novellas. [26] [27] [28] In the same year, Moustache, her translation of Meesha, by S. Hareesh, [29] fetched her the JCB Prize for Literature, [30] [31] arguably the literary award in India with the largest winner's purse. [32] Valli, A Novel, the latest of her works, also featured in the shortlist for JCB Prize for Literature in 2022. [33]
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Schizophrenia is a mental disorder characterized variously by hallucinations, delusions, disorganized thinking and behavior, and flat or inappropriate affect. Symptoms develop gradually and typically begin during young adulthood and are never resolved. There is no objective diagnostic test; diagnosis is based on observed behavior, a psychiatric history that includes the person's reported experiences, and reports of others familiar with the person. For a diagnosis of schizophrenia, the described symptoms need to have been present for at least six months or one month. Many people with schizophrenia have other mental disorders, especially mood, anxiety, and substance use disorders, as well as obsessive–compulsive disorder (OCD).
Edwin Fuller Torrey, is an American psychiatrist and schizophrenia researcher. He is associate director of research at the Stanley Medical Research Institute (SMRI) and founder of the Treatment Advocacy Center (TAC), a nonprofit organization whose principal activity is promoting the passage and implementation of outpatient commitment laws and civil commitment laws and standards in individual states that allow people diagnosed with severe mental illness to be involuntarily hospitalized and treated throughout the United States.
Velupillai Prabhakaran was a Tamil revolutionary. Prabhakaran was a major figure of Tamil nationalism, and the founder and leader of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). The LTTE was a militant organization that sought to create an independent Tamil state in the north and east of Sri Lanka in reaction to the oppression of the country's Tamil population by the Sri Lankan government. Under his direction, the LTTE undertook a military campaign against the Sri Lankan government for more than 25 years.
Maniyambath Mukundan is an Indian author of Malayalam literature and former diplomat. He worked as a cultural attaché at the Embassy of France in Delhi from 1961 to 2004, while concurrently working as an author. Many of his early works are set in Mahe (Mayyazhi), his homeland, which earned him the moniker Mayyazhiyude Kathakaaran. He is known to be one of the pioneers of modernity in Malayalam literature. Some of his best known works include Mayyazhippuzhayude Theerangalil, Daivathinte Vikrithikal, Kesavante Vilapangal, and Pravasam.
Loren Richard Mosher was an American psychiatrist, clinical professor of psychiatry, expert on schizophrenia and the chief of the Center for Studies of Schizophrenia in the National Institute of Mental Health (1968–1980). Mosher spent his professional career advocating for humane and effective treatment for people diagnosed as having schizophrenia and was instrumental in developing an innovative, residential, home-like, non-hospital, non-drug treatment model for newly identified acutely psychotic persons.
Benny Daniel, better known by his pen name Benyamin, is an Indian writer in Malayalam from Kerala. He is the author of about thirty books in various genres – from short stories to novels and memoirs. For his novel Goat Days (Aadujeevitham), he won the Abu Dhabi Sakthi Award, Kerala Sahitya Akademi Award and JCB Prize, and was shortlisted for the Man Asian Literary Prize. The novel Manthalirile 20 Communist Varshangal won the Vayalar Award in 2021.
Anuradha Roy is an Indian novelist, journalist and editor. She has written five novels: An Atlas of Impossible Longing (2008), The Folded Earth (2011), Sleeping on Jupiter (2015), All the Lives We Never Lived (2018), and The Earthspinner (2021).
Mathrubhumi Azhchappathippu is an Indian general interest weekly magazine published by the Mathrubhumi Printing and Publishing Company in Kozhikode. The Malayalam language magazine started publishing on 18 January 1932.
Annie Zaidi is an English-language writer from India. Her novel, Prelude To A Riot, won the Tata Literature Live! Awards for Book of the Year 2020. In 2019, she won The Nine Dots Prize for her work Bread, Cement, Cactus and in 2018 she won The Hindu Playwright Award for her play, Untitled-1. Her non-fiction debut, a collection of essays, Known Turf: Bantering with Bandits and Other True Tales, was short-listed for the Vodafone Crossword Book Award in 2010.
Susie Tharu is an Indian writer, publisher, professor, editor and women's activist. Throughout her career and the founding of several women's activist organizations, Tharu has helped to highlight those issues in India.
N. Prabhakaran is a noted short story writer, novelist, poet, playwright, essayist, educationist, editor and columnist in Malayalam. He won the 2022 Kerala Sahitya Akademi Fellowship. The eldest of the five children born to N Kunhambu and A Kalliani, Prabhakaran was born at Parassinikkadavu in Kannur district of Kerala on 30 December 1952. He spent his childhood days at Madayi. Prabhakaran studied at Madayi L P School, Govt. High School, Madayi, Payyannur College and Government Brennen College, Thalassery. He served as a lecturer at the Dept. of Malayalam of Lekshmipuram college of Arts and Science, Neyyoor, Kanyakumari District, Tamil Nadu, University College, Thiruvananthapuram, CKG Memorial Govt College, Perambra, and Govt Brennen College, Thalassery, and retired while serving as the Head of the Malayalam Department of Brennen College. The writer also served as a visiting professor of Malayalam at the University of Calicut. Prabhakaran resides at Dharmadam in Thalassery.
Mambalikalathil Sarada Menon was an Indian psychiatrist, social worker and the founder of Schizophrenia Research Foundation (SCARF), a Chennai-based non-governmental organization working for the rehabilitation of people afflicted with schizophrenia and other mental disorders. An Avvaiyyar Award recipient, she was a former Madras Medical Service officer and the first woman psychiatrist in India. The Government of India awarded her the third highest civilian honour of the Padma Bhushan, in 1992, for her contributions to society.
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S. Hareesh is an Indian writer, translator and screenwriter of Malayalam literature and cinema. He is best known for his short stories and his acclaimed but controversial debut novel, Meesa, which explores caste in Kerala in the mid-20th century. The novel, initially serialized in the Mathrubhumi weekly, was withdrawn after protests by right-wing Hindutva groups and caste-community organizations for "maligning Hindu women and temple priests". It was later published as a full novel by DC Books. Hareesh is the recipient of several honours including the Kerala Sahitya Akademi Award for Novel and the Geetha Hiranyan Endowment of the Kerala Sahitya Akademi. In November 2020, the English translation of Meesa, titled Moustache, was selected for the JCB Prize for Literature, the Indian literary award with the highest prize money.
JCB Prize for Literature is an Indian literary award established in 2018. It is awarded annually with ₹2,500,000 (US$29,000) prize to a distinguished work of fiction by an Indian writer working in English or translated fiction by an Indian writer. The winners will be announced each November with shortlists in October and longlists in September. It has been called "India's most valuable literature prize". Rana Dasgupta is the founding Literary Director of the JCB Prize. In 2020, Mita Kapur was appointed as the new Literary Director.
Meesa is the debut novel of Malayalam writer S. Hareesh. It was serialised in parts by the Mathrubhumi Illustrated Weekly and published in its entirety by DC Books. Due to protests from Hindu organisations, the serialisation was cancelled after the third part. The novel was translated into English by Jayasree Kalathil under the title Moustache.
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Madhuri Vijay is an Indian author living in Hawaii. She is the author of The Far Field, which won the second JCB Prize for literature, India's most prestigious literary award.
Saharu Nusaiba Kannanari is an Indian author best known for his debut novel, Chronicle of an Hour and a Half. This novel was shortlisted for the JCB prize and was the winner of the Crossword Award for Indian English writers in 2024.
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