C. Radhakrishnan

C. Radhakrishnan (born 15 February 1939) is an Indian novelist, short story writer, film director and physicist who writes in Malayalam. He is one of the most widely read Malayalam writers of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, and has received nearly every major literary recognition in Kerala, including the Ezhuthachan Puraskaram, the Moortidevi Award of the Bharatiya Jnanpith, and the Sahitya Akademi Award. He was conferred the status of Eminent Member by the Sahitya Akademi in 2022, becoming only the second Malayalam writer after M. T. Vasudevan Nair to receive that distinction.

Life

Early life and education Chakkupurayil Radhakrishnan was born on 15 February 1939 in Chamravattam (a village in Tirur) in Malappuram district, which was then a part of the Madras Presidency of British India, to Parappur Madathil Madhavan Nair — a veteran freedom fighter — and Chakkupurayil Janaki Amma. He heard from his grandparents that Thunchaththu Ezhuthachan was an ancestor in his lineage; this family tradition later provided the basis for his biographical novel on Ezhuthachan titled Theekkadal Kadanhu Thirumadhuram.

He completed his secondary schooling at Achutha Varier High School, Ponnani, where he won the Best Student Gold Medal. He then attended Zamorin's College, Calicut, winning the Madras University Sharpe Scholarship at the intermediate level and a top-rank gold medal on graduating with a degree in physics. He subsequently enrolled for a postgraduate degree in applied physics at Government Victoria College, Palakkad, though he did not complete the programme. He also edited the Malayalam magazine Piravi published by the School of Bhagavad Gita.

Literary career Radhakrishnan wrote his first novel Nizhalppadukal at the age of nineteen, topping 120 entries in a novel-writing competition organised by the Mathrubhumi Weekly. The work was serialised in the magazine and later published by Current Books in 1962, winning the Kerala Sahitya Akademi Award that year.

His 1986 novel Spandamapinikale Nandi (Thank You, Seismographs) received the Sahitya Akademi Award for Malayalam in 1988. In July 2014 he was awarded the Moortidevi Award for the year 2013 for his biographical novel Theekkadal Kadanhu Thirumadhuram. He was conferred the Ezhuthachan Puraskaram for the year 2016.

Other literary recognitions include the Mathrubhumi Literary Award (2015), the K. P. Kesava Menon Memorial Award (2016), the Vayalar Award (1990), the Madhava Mudra, the Nalappadan Award (2016) from the Nalappadan Memorial Cultural Society for holistic contributions to Malayalam literature, and the Thrikkavu Devi Puraskaram. These works have not been reviewed or cited in mainstream physics literature.