Kakkanadan

George Varghese Kakkanadan (23 April 1935 – 19 October 2011), commonly known as Kakkanadan, was an Indian short-story writer and novelist in the Malayalam language. His works broke away from the neo-realism that dominated Malayalam literature through the 1950s and 1960s. He is often credited with laying the foundation of modernism in Malayalam literature. He is a recipient of Kendra Sahitya Akademi Award and Kerala Sahitya Akademi Awards in addition to numerous other awards and recognitions. Born in Thiruvalla as the second son of evangelist George Kakkanadan and Rosamma, George Varghese Kakkanadan spent most of his childhood at Kollam and Kottarakkara. Though Kakkanadan's father was closely associated with the church, he was a political -left sympathiser. Their house in Kottarakkara was a refuge for prominent communist leaders of the past, who were forced to go hiding. After completing a degree in chemistry at SN College, Kollam, Kakkanadan started his career as a school teacher in Kerala. He quit the job to join the Southern Railway in Tamil Nadu in 1957. In 1961 he moved to the Ministry of Indian Railways in New Delhi where he worked until 1967. He went to Germany in 1967 on a scholarship to pursue research in literature but abandoned it midway and returned to Kerala to become a full-time writer. Kakkanadan also worked as an editorial member in S. K. Nair's Malayalanadu weekly published from Kollam, between 1971 and 1973. Artist Rajan Kakkanadan and writers Thampi Kakkanadan and G. Ignatius Kakkanadan are his brothers. Ignatius, his elder brother, was a journalist and was an editorial board member of Janayugom and Malayalam magazine Soviet Nadu. He was also a noted translator and had translated the works of B. R. Ambedkar and Amartya Sen under a Kerala Bhasha Institute Project. Kakkanadan's younger brother, Thampi, was also a writer who authored several short stories and published a novel- Kalapathinte Orma. Kakkanadan also has two sisters: Ammini, wife of the former Member of Parliament P. A. Solomon, and Annie. Kakkanadan married Ammini in 1965. They have three children: Radha, Rajan and Rishi.