Perumal Murugan

Perumal Murugan (born 1966 ) is an Indian writer, scholar and literary chronicler who writes in Tamil. He has written twelve novels, six collections of short stories, six anthologies of poetry and many non-fiction books. Ten of his novels have been translated into English: Seasons of the Palm, which was shortlisted for the Kiriyama Prize in 2005, Current Show, One Part Woman, A Lonely Harvest, Trail by Silence, Poonachi or the Story of a Goat, Resolve, Estuary, Rising Heat, and Pyre He was a professor of Tamil at the Government Arts College in Salem Attur and Namakkal.

Life and education

Early life Perumal Murugan was born in 1966 to a family of farmers who had small land holdings near Thiruchengodu, a town in Namakkal district, Tamil Nadu. His father, a farmer, supplemented the family's income by running a soda shop in a cinema theatre in Thiruchengode. Murugan began writing from his early age, and some of his early lyrics of children's songs were featured on programmes broadcast by All India Radio. Murugan taught as professor of Tamil at the Government Arts College in Namakkal. and worked Head of the department of Tamil literature at a government college in Attur, Tamil Nadu. In between, he briefly taught at the Presidency College in Chennai. He Worked as a Principal of Govt. Arts College, Namakkal.

Literary career and works Murugan is the author of twelve novels, and six collections each of short stories and poems, as well as thirteen books of non-fiction relating to language and literature, in addition to editing several fiction and non-fiction anthologies. Published by Penguin Books, the novel was originally written in Tamil under the name Madhorubagan and then later translated in English by Aniruddhan Vasudevan as One Part Woman. Aniruddhan Vasudevan was awarded Sahitya Akademi Translation Prize (2016) for this book.

His next novel, Poonachi (The Story Of A Black Goat, 2017) dealt with the life of a special female goat in the Kongunadu region, focusing on the tragic life of the goat in the hands of a poor old couple.

In June 2018, Murugan announced that he was working on a new novel, which examined middle-class families and their relationship with new technology. This novel, titled Kazhimugam (Estuary) was translated by Nandini Krishnan to English and published in 2020.

Controversy

Murugan's fifth novel Madhorubhagan (translated as 'One Part Woman') was set in his native town of Thiruchengode, and dealt with a couple, Kali and Ponna, who were the subject of social stigma and humiliation for their inability to have a child. The novel portrays their eventual participation in a chariot festival to honour the god Ardhanareeshwara, during which, for one night every year, the local community in the novel relaxed taboos and allowed free relations between men and women. The novel was published in 2010 and was well-received, but began to attract controversy in 2014 after local caste-based and religious Hindu groups objected to the fictional portrayal of traditions at the Ardhanareeswarar Temple in Tiruchengode, where the eponymous presiding deity is part-Shiva and part-Parvati in one idol. He had further received grants from the Tata Foundation and India Foundation for the Arts headed by Anmol Vellani. The Tamil title of the book, Madhorubagan, is a translation of the name of the deity (Ardha-naree-eswarar), just as the English title, One Part Woman, is an allusion to the deity's form. The protest by some outfits were continued by the local units even after they lost momentum at the state level.

Protests were eventually called off after the local police summoned the protesters and Murugan for a 'peace talk' and compelled him to sign an “unconditional apology” and withdraw all copies of the novel. Following this judgment, Murugan returned to his literary career with a collection of poetry.

In 2021, Murugan's picture was included in a political banner created by the Bharatiya Janata Party, in which he along with several other persons were depicted as residents of a local slum. A spokesperson from the BJP apologized for the inclusion; however, Murugan stated "“I myself belong to slums, so I am delighted. I am happy to have featured along with them."