Rajam Krishnan


Rajam Krishnan, was a feminist Tamil writer from Tamil Nadu, India.

Biography

Rajam Krishnan was born in Musiri, Tiruchirapalli district. She had very little formal education and appears to have been largely an autodidact.
She started publishing in her twenties. She is known for writing well researched social novels on the lives of people usually not depicted in modern Tamil literature - poor farmers, salt pan workers, small-time criminals, jungle dacoits, under-trial prisoners and female labourers. She has written more than 80 books. Her works include forty novels, twenty plays, two biographies and several short stories. In addition to her own writing, she was a translator of literature from Malayalam to Tamil. In their anthology of Women's Writing in India in the 19th and 20th Century, Susie J Tharu and K Lalita credit Krishnan with "having set a new trend in Tamil literature," referring to the extensive research that Krishnan did in evaluating social conditions as background for her writing.
In 1973, she was awarded the Sahitya Akademi Award for Tamil for her novel Verukku Neer. In 2009, her works were nationalised by the Government of Tamil Nadu, for a compensation of Rs. 300,000. It was a rare occurrence as only works of dead writers are usually nationalised in Tamil Nadu.

Death

Rajam was left poor and destitute in her later years and had to be admitted to an old age home. She died on 20 October 2014.

Awards and recognitions