Thakazhi Sivasankara Pillai

Infobox Writer
name = Thakazhi Sivasankara Pillai


imagesize = 200px
caption = A commemorative postage stamp featuring Thakazhi
pseudonym = Thakazhi
birthdate = birth date|1912|04|17
birthplace = Thakazhi, Alappuzha,Kerala,India
deathdate = death date and age|1999|04|10|1912|04|17
deathplace = Thakazhi, Alappuzha,Kerala,India
occupation =
nationality = Indian
period =
genre = Novel, Short story
subject = Social aspects
movement = Realism
influences = Guy de Maupassant, Karl Marx, Sigmund Freud.
influenced =


website =

"Thakazhi" Sivasankara Pillai (17 April, 1912 - 10 April, 1999) was a novelist and short story writer of Malayalam. He is popularly known as Thakazhi, after his place of birth. He focused on the oppressed classes as the subject of his works, which are known for their attention to historic detail. He has written several novels and over 600 short stories. His most famous works are "Kayar" (Coir, 1978) and "Chemmeen" (Prawns, 1956; film adaptation, 1965). He was awarded the Indian government's highest literary award, the Jnanpith in 1984.

Born in the village of Thakazhi, in Kuttanad, Alappuzha district of Kerala, he started to write stories when he was a schoolboy. His literary taste was nurtured by his high school headmaster Kainikkara Kumara Pillai (1900-1988) who exposed him to Indian literature. He met "Kesari" A Balakrishna Pillai (1889-1960) while pursuing his law studies in Thiruvananthapuram. He introduced Thakazhi to modern European literature and thought.

His novels and short stories basically discussed various aspects of societies in Kerala in the mid-20th century. His novel "Thottiyude makan" (Scavenger's Son, 1947) is considered a pioneer work in Malayalam realistic novel. It is about modernity challenging the rationale of the caste system, that one's profession should depend on pedigree.

His love epic "Chemmeen" (Prawns, 1956) which was a departure from his earlier line of realism, met with immense popularity. It told a tragic love story set in the backdrop of a fishing village in Alappuzha. The novel and its film adaptataion, also titled "Chemmeen" (1965) earned him national and international fame. "Chemmeen" was translated into 19 world languages and adapted as film in 15 countries. Chemmeen won for Thakazhi the "Kendra Sahitya Academy Award" in 1958. The film adaptation, directed by Ramu Kariat won the National Film Award for Best Film in 1964.

Despite the populairy of Chemmeen, his novel "Kayar" (Coir, 1978) is quite widely considered as his masterpiece. The novel spreads to over 1000 densely printed pages and deals with hundreds of characters over four generations, bring back to life an axial period (1885-1971) during which feudalism, matriliny and bonded labor gave way to conjugal life, everyone’s access to a piece of land, decolonization and the industrial revolution of the 1960s.

Thakazhi has been known to often write an entire novel within one weekend. Its argued that the novel "Chemmeen" was written within one weekend.fact|date=May 2007

Quotes on Thakazhi

Dr V Rajakrishnan:

K. R. Narayanan:

Francis Olivier Zimmermann (Directeur d'études, Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales, Paris) on "Kayar":

Famous Works

*"Thottiyude makan" (Scavenger's Son, 1947)
*"Randidangazhi" (Two Measures, 1948)
*"Chemmeen" (Prawns, 1956; film adaptation, 1965)
*"Enippadikal" (Footsteps, 1964)
*"Kayar" (Coir, 1978)

References

*cite web|url=http://www.hinduonnet.com/fline/fl1609/16091110.htm|title=The end of historiography?|work=Frontline|author=Dr. Ayyappa Paniker|date=|year=1999|month=April|accessdate=2007-05-26
*cite web|url=http://ehess.tessitures.org/vivavoce/fileadmin/kayar/chronologieKayar.pdf|title=Thakazhi's KAYAR : Stories, Narrative and History in a Malayalam modern epic|author=Francis Olivier Zimmermann
*cite web|url=http://www.indianexpress.com/res/web/pIe/ie/daily/19990411/ile11041.html|title=A literary colossus, Thakazhi helped Malayalam literature break colonial mould|author=Press Trust of India
*cite web|url=http://www.venumenon.com/articles/article_page.asp?catid=6&artid=15|title=Pantheon Revisited: Thakazhi|author=Venu Menon