C. L. Jose

Chakkalakal Lonappan Jose, is an Indian playwright of Malayalam literature. One of the pioneers of popular Malayalam theatre and a former chairman of the Kerala Sangeetha Nataka Akademi, Jose is the author of 36 plays, 75 one-act plays, one children's play and Ormakalkku Urakkamilla, his autobiography. He is a recipient of the Kerala Sahitya Akademi Award for Drama, Kerala Sahitya Akademi Award for Overall Contributions, Kerala Sahitya Akademi Fellowship, Kerala Sangeetha Nataka Akademi Award, Kerala Sangeetha Nataka Akademi Fellowship and S. L. Puram Sadanandan Puraskaram of the Kerala Sangeetha Nataka Akademi.

Biography

C. L. Jose was born in the Chakkalakal house at Puthukad, Thrissur district of the south Indian state of Kerala to Lonappan and Manjali Mariakutty as the eldest of their nine children. His early education was at St. Mary's Lourde's U.P. School - Thrissur after which he started his career at a Chit fund company in Thrissur as a clerk. He started his literary career as a playwright with Manam Thelinju, which he wrote for a local club in the town when he was 24. Besides he has documented the story of his life in an autobiography, Ormakalkku Urakkamilla. His plays were popular in the amateur theatre Manalkadu, one of his plays, has been translated into 14 Indian languages and was broadcast through the All India Radio as a part of their Drama Week. Subsequently, two more of his plays were made into films viz. Bhoomiyile Malakha in 1965 and Agninakshathram in 2004.

Jose has served as a faculty of fine arts at the University of Calicut, has been a member of the Kerala Sahithya Akademi and the Samastha Kerala Sahithya Parishad, has sat in the advisory board of the All India Radio and has presided over the Fine Arts Society of Thrissur. He also chaired the Kerala Sangeetha Nataka Akademi for a brief period in the 1990s Three of his plays have been included in the academic curriculum; Manalkkad at the University of Calicut, Jwalanam at the University of Kerala and Yugathrushna at Mahatma Gandhi University. The family lives in Puthukad, in Thrissur. and the year 2008 brought him two awards viz. the Kerala Sangeetha Nataka Akademi Award and the Chevalier title of the Holy See. and four years later, he received the 2016 S. L. Puram Sadanandan Puraskaram - the highest award in theatre of the Government of Kerala. In 2020, he received the Abu Dhabi Sakthi Award for Overall Contribution (T. K. Ramakrishnan Award). In 2023, he received the Kerala Sahitya Akademi Fellowship.