M. V. Venkatram was a Tamil

Tamil language

Tamil is a Dravidian language spoken predominantly by Tamil people of the Indian subcontinent. It has official status in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu and in the Indian union territory of Pondicherry. Tamil is also an official language of Sri Lanka and Singapore...

, writer and translator from Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu is one of the 28 states of India. Its capital and largest city is Chennai. Tamil Nadu lies in the southernmost part of the Indian Peninsula and is bordered by the union territory of Pondicherry, and the states of Kerala, Karnataka, and Andhra Pradesh...

, India

India

India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...

.

Biography

Venkatram was born in Kumbakonam

Kumbakonam

Kumbakonam , also spelt as Coombaconum in the records of British India , is a town and a special grade municipality in the Thanjavur district in the southeast Indian state of Tamil Nadu. Located 40 kilometres from Thanjavur and 272 kilometres from Chennai, it is the headquarters of the Kumbakonam...

 in a Sourashtra

Saurashtra language

Sourashtra or "Sourashtras" or ꢱꣃꢬꢵꢰ꣄ꢜ꣄ꢬꢵ refers to a community of people who had their original homes in Gujarat and presently settled almost in all major Towns of Tamil Nadu and are concentrated more in Madurai which is considered as their cultural Headquarters.They have also settled in...

 family. He obtained a B.A degree in Economics

Economics

Economics is the social science that analyzes the production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services. The term economics comes from the Ancient Greek from + , hence "rules of the house"...

 and was involved in silk Zari

Zari

Zari is basically a tinsel thread meant for weaving and embroidery. It is manufactured by winding or wrapping a flattened metallic strip made from pure gold, silver or slitted metallised polyester film, on a core yarn, usually of pure silk, art silk, viscose, cotton, nylon, polyester, P.P.,...

 business. He first started publishing in the literary magazine Manikodi in the 1930s, while he was still a college student. He was influenced by Ku. Pa. Rajagopalan

K. P. Rajagopalan

Kumbakonam P. Rajagopalan , known by his pen name Ku. Pa. Ra. was a Tamil writer, translator and journalist.- Early life :Rajagopalan was born in 1902 in Kumbakonam, Madras Presidency. He had his education in Kumbakonam and joined the services of the Madras government...

 and was part of a literary circle that included Karichan Kunju (R. Narayanaswami), Thi. Janakiraman, Thiruloka Seetaram, Dhenuka, Thanjai Prakash, Na.Vichuvanathan, C.M.Muthu and Podhikaiverkpan. His works have been published in magazines like Kaalamohini, Grama Ooozhiyan and Sivaji. He also ran a literary magazine named Thenee briefly. He has written over two hundred short stories and novels. Nithyakanni Kathukal and Velivithee are his most noted works. He also wrote more than 60 short biographies for Palaniappa Brothers and translated over 10 books for the National Book Trust of India. In 1993, he was awarded the Sahitya Akademi Award

Sahitya Akademi Award

Sahitya Akademi Award is a literary honor in India which Sahitya Akademi, India's National Academy of Letters, annually confers on writers of outstanding works in one of the following twenty-four major Indian languagesAssamese, Bengali, Bodo, Dogri, English, Gujarati, Hindi, Kannada, Kashmiri,...

 for Tamil for novel Kathukal (lit. Ears).

Novels

• Nithyakanni(1955)
• Uyirin yathirai (1957)
• Iruttu (1957)
• Arumbu (1965)
• Velvithee (1963)
• Oru pen poradukiral (1975)
• Kathukal (1992).

Short story collections

• Mallikai vasam (1964),
• Sukam enge (1966)
• Kuyili (1964)
• Varavum selavum(1964)
• Vyasar padaitha penmanikal (1966)
• Mohini (1964)

Further reading