M Mukundan is one of the most reputed contemporary fiction writers in Kerala. He has to his credit nineteen novels and eight collections of short stories. His stories and novels have been translated into most of the major Indian languages, English and French.
When he started writing his stories in the early sixties, Kerala’s political and cultural life was going through a transformation. Unemployment was rampant, cultural life had stagnated as the Progressive Literary Movement had started decaying. It was in this socio-cultural scenario that Mukundan appeared on the literary scene in Kerala, publishing his early short stories in the prestigious Mathrubhumi weekly. It is with the publication of his novel On the banks of the Mayyazhi that Mukundan achieved mass popularity in Kerala. Over the years Mukundan has been instrumental in helping Malayalee readers develop new sensibilities with innovation in form and content of his fictional oeuvre.
Delhi: A Soliloquy, the English translation of his novel Delhi Gadhakal, won the the JCB Prize for Literature (2021). Mukundan has been conferred over twenty awards and honours, including the Sahitya Akademi Award, the First Crossword award for Indian fiction in English translation and the Chevalier of the Arts and Letters from the French Government.
His book:
You, originally written in Malayalam, being translated into English by Nandakumar K