Kovilan (1923–2010)

Kandanisseri Vattamparambil Velappan Ayyappan (9 July 1923 – 2 June 2010) or V. V. Ayyappan, better known by his nom de plume Kovilan, was an Indian Malayalam language novelist and freedom fighter from Kerala. He is considered as one of the most prolific writers of contemporary Indian literature. In all, he had authored 11 novels, 10 collections of short stories, three essays and a play. Though the settings of his stories varied from military camps in frozen Himalayas to obscure village in Thrissur, he brought to bear a universal dimension on them transcending the limitations of space and time. Though initially he was branded as a writer of military stories, Kovilan soon proved that he looked at life with its varied dimensions. His works like Thottangal, A Minus B and Ezhamedangal reflected the existential dilemmas of human beings instead of depicting mere external situations and realities in a linear mode. But Kovilan received the highest critical appreciation for his later work Thattakam, a powerful and poignant portrayal of generations of people in his ancestral hamlet.

He won the Kerala Sahitya Akademi Award in 1972 and 1977 and the Kendra Sahitya Akademi Award in 1998. He was also a recipient of the Kerala state government's highest literary honour Ezhuthachan Puraskaram in recognition of his outstanding contribution to Malayalam literature. He had been a Fellow of the Kerala Sahitya Akademi since 1997 and Sahitya Akademi since 2005. -Wikipedia