Tamil literature includes a collection of literary works that have come from a tradition spanning more than two thousand years. The oldest extant works show signs of maturity indicating an even longer period of evolution. Contributors to the Tamil literature are mainly from Tamil people from south India, including the land now comprising Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Eelam Tamils from Sri Lanka, as well as the Tamil diaspora.
Ashokamitran was the pen name of Jagadisa Thyagarajan, an Indian writer regarded as one of the most influential figures in post-independent Tamil literature. He began his prolific literary career with the prize-winning play "Anbin Parisu" and went on to author more than two hundred short stories, and a dozen novellas and novels. A distinguished essayist and critic, he was the editor of the literary journal "Kanaiyaazhi". He has written over 200 short stories, nine novels, and some 15 novellas besides other prose writings. Most of his works have also been translated into English and other Indian languages, including Hindi, Malayalam, and Telugu.
Mahasweta Devi was an Indian writer in Bengali and an activist. Her notable literary works include Hajar Churashir Maa, Rudali, and Aranyer Adhikar. She was a leftist who worked for the rights and empowerment of the tribal people of West Bengal, Bihar, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh states of India. She was honoured with various literary awards such as the Sahitya Akademi Award, Jnanpith Award and Ramon Magsaysay Award along with India's civilian awards Padma Shri and Padma Vibhushan.
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.
Balakumaran was an Indian Tamil writer and author of over 200 novels, 100 short stories, and dialogue/screenplay writer for 23 films. He also contributed to Tamil periodicals such as Kalki, Ananda Vikatan and Kumudam. His notable works as a dialogue writer in Tamil Cinema include Nayakan, Guna, Baashha and Pudhupettai.
Parutholli Chalappurathu Kuttikrishnan, popularly known by his pen name Uroob was an Indian writer of Malayalam literature. Along with Basheer, Thakazhi, Kesavadev, and Pottekkatt, Uroob was counted among the progressive writers in Malayalam during the twentieth century. He was known for his novels such as Sundarikalum Sundaranmarum and Ummachu, short stories like Rachiyamma and the screenplays of a number of Malayalam films including Neelakuyil, the first Malayalam feature film to receive the National Film Award. He was a recipient of several honours including Kendra Sahithya Academy Award and the inaugural Kerala Sahitya Akademi Award for Novel.
Bhisham Sahni was an Indian writer, playwright in Hindi and an actor, most famous for his novel and television screenplay Tamas, a powerful and passionate account of the Partition of India. He was awarded the Padma Bhushan for literature in 1998, and Sahitya Akademi Fellowship in 2002. He was the younger brother of the noted Hindi film actor, Balraj Sahni.
Dr. 'Ampasayya' Naveen is a Telugu novelist. He is an Osmania University alumni, and his college life at OU inspired his first novel, Ampasayya. His novel Kala Rekhalu won the Sahitya Academy Award in 2004.
Syed Mustafa Siraj was an eminent Indian writer. In 1994, he received the Sahitya Akademi Award for his novel Aleek Manush, considered his most lauded work. In 2005, his short story "Ranirghater Brittanto" was made into the film Faltu by Anjan Das. He wrote around 150 novels and 300 short stories. He is the creator of the detective character Colonel Niladri Sarkar a.k.a. "Goenda Colonel", the Detective Colonel.
Rayangala Shri Krishna Raja Narayana Perumal Ramanujam Naicker, shortened to Ki. Rajanarayanan and popularly known by his Tamil initials as Ki. Ra., was an Indian Tamil language folklorist and acclaimed writer from Kovilpatti, in Tamil Nadu. Some of his popular works include Gopalla Grammam, Gopallapurathu Makkal, Mayamaan, and Nattuppura Kadhai Kalanjiyam. He was a recipient of the Sahitya Akademi Award in 1991.The Times of India called him the "Guardian of Tamil oral tradition".
Nityananda Mahapatra was an Indian Odia politician, poet and journalist.
M. V. Venkatram, was a Tamil, writer and translator from Tamil Nadu, India.
K. R. Meera is an Indian author and journalist, who writes in Malayalam. She was born in Sasthamkotta, Kollam district in Kerala. She worked as a journalist in Malayala Manorama but later resigned to concentrate more on writing. She started writing fiction in 2001 and her first short story collection Ormayude Njarambu was published in 2002. Since then she has published five collections of short stories, two novellas, five novels and two children's books. She won the Kerala Sahitya Akademi Award in 2009 for her short-story, Ave Maria. Her novel Aarachaar (2012) is widely regarded as one of the best literary works produced in Malayalam language. It received several awards including the Kerala Sahitya Akademi Award (2013), Odakkuzhal Award (2013), Vayalar Award (2014) and Kendra Sahitya Akademi Award (2015). It was also shortlisted for the 2016 DSC Prize for South Asian Literature.
Perumal Murugan is an Indian writer, scholar and literary chronicler who writes in Tamil. He has written twelve novels, six collections of short stories, six anthologies of poetry and many of the non-fiction books. Ten of his novels have been translated into English: Seasons of the Palm, which was shortlisted for the Kiriyama Prize in 2005, Current Show, One Part Woman, A Lonely Harvest, Trail by Silence, Poonachi or the Story of a Goat, Resolve, Estuary, Rising Heat, and Pyre He was a professor of Tamil at the Government Arts College in Salem Attur and Namakkal.
Imayam is an Indian Tamil-language novelist from Chennai, Tamil Nadu. He has eight novels, eight short story collections and a novella to his credit. Widely acknowledged for his realist mode of writing, his stories are known for their incisive exploration of societal intricacies. Closely associated with the Dravidian Movement and its politics, he is considered as one of the leading writers from South India. He is the recipient of the honorary Sahitya Akademi Award for his novel Selladha Panam in 2020. He is also the first Tamil writer to receive the Kuvempu Rashtriya Puraskar National Award (2022) for bringing new sensibilites to Tamil literature through his writings. Noting the writer's proclivity to Dravidian ideals, the Tamil Nadu chief minister M.K.Stalin called him "an ideologue donned in black and red". He lauded Imayam calling him a "proactive writer" in the Dravidian movement.
Era Natarasan, popularly known as Ayesha Natarasan, is an Indian writer of children's books. He writes in Tamil and English. He is the author of Ayisha / Ayesha that has sold millions of copies in 12 languages. He has written more than 80 books most of them on science and Science Fiction including Vigyana vikramadhithyan kadhaigal which won the "Bal Sahitya Puraskar Award" for Children Literature, awarded by Sahitya Academy.
Poornachandran is a Tamil writer from India. He was born in Arcot in 1949, worked as a Tamil professor in Bishop Heber College, Tiruchirappalli and an emeritus professor in Pondicherry University. He is currently living in Chennai. He has written many books on the subjects of Tamil literary criticism and has translated several books from English to Tamil. He won the Sahitya Akademi Translation Prize in 2016 for his translation of the fiction Serious Men by Manu Joseph into Tamil as "Poruppumikka Manidargal". He is also a recipient of Anantha Vikatan awards for translation in 2011 and 2016.
He has written 11 books, majorly based on literary criticism and western contemporary theories, and has translated 37 books on variety of subjects and genres from English to Tamil. He has also published 4 books and has written a lot of essays in the little magazines such as Kalachuvadu (காலச்சுவடு), Nigazh (நிகழ்), Tamil Neyam. He is one of the first persons to conduct Badal Sircar Theatrical Workshop in Tiruchirappalli in 1989. He had been an influential person in Tiruchi Cine-forum and Tiruchi Readers-forum and had developed an interest on art films and serious book reading in many of his students. He is actively writing essays and articles in his website www.poornachandran.com which shall help the students on their academics and the others to think on the contemporary issues faced by the society on various fields. He is also running an endowment on his name through which he has been conducting regular workshops for the students on the subjects of literature and criticism.
Thathamangalam Damodaran Ramakrishnan is an Indian novelist, translator, and retired Chief Controller in Southern Railway. He has authored two best-selling Malayalam novels: Francis Itty Cora and Sugandhi Enna Andal Devanayaki. He is a recipient of the Kerala Sahitya Akademi Award and Vayalar Award.
Maharaj Kumari Binodini Devi was a writer from the Northeastern Indian state of Manipur. She wrote in Meiteilon under the mononym Binodini. She was best known for her 1976 historical novel Boro Saheb Ongbi Sanatombi, which won the Sahitya Akademi Award in 1979. Its English translation, ThePrincess and the Political Agent, was published as a Penguin Modern Classic in 2020 by Penguin Random House India.
R. Kaliprasadh is a Tamil writer. He has written short stories, translations, and literary reviews and criticism.
