Pa. Raghavan

Pa. Raghavan, a well known Tamil writer, winner of the prestigious ‘Bharathiya Basha Parishad Award’ in 2004. His best known and most appreciated work is Yathi, a Novel, which shows the world of Indian Sanyasis (Monks). His non fictions like Dollar Desam (Political History of America) and Nilamellam Raththam (History of the Israel – Palestine Conflict) are considered to be the milestones in Tamil non-fiction writing. Pa. Raghavan, often called Para, was born on 8 October 1971 to R.Parthasarathy and P. Ramamani in Adayar, Chennai. His father hailed from Thanjavur District of Tamilnadu and is from a family of teachers. His father had a career in education starting as a teacher and held various posts such as Head Master, District Education Officer before retiring as the Deputy Director in the Department of Education. He wrote short stories and poems under the pen name R.P. Sarathy. He has also translated books such as Baburnama, Mahavamsa and India After Gandhi. Due to the nature of his father’s job, the family had to shift to various places and Para attended different schools in these places to complete his education. The family finally settled in Chennai and Para completed his diploma in Mechanical Engineering in the Central Polytechnic Chennai. Today, Para lives with his wife and daughter in Chromepet, Chennai. Para was very interested in writing from early days. His first published work was a Children’s Poem in the Tamil Magazine 'Gokulam'. Although he was writing continuously from then on, Para says he was able to master the technic of writing only after he got the friendship of Ma.Ve. Sivakumar, one of the great Tamil writers in 1989. In 1990, a story of his was published in the reputed magazine ‘Kanaiyazhi’ which got him the attention of the Tamil Literary community.