About Jayakanthan
Jayakanthan was born in 1934 in Cuddalore, India in 1934 and grew up in Madras (now, Chennai). He spent his childhood and his adult life in Chennai, and as a result, Jayakanthan makes the city the locale for his fiction. In fact, in an interview, Jayakanthan clarified that his novel – A Man, A Home and a World – is the only work with a village atmosphere and that its hero Henry represents the universal man from a village not yet corrupted by ‘values imported from towns and forced by the present-day politics.
Jayakanthan’s contribution to arts and politics spans over 50 years when he has donned all kinds of hats: foot soldier, journalist, writer, pamphleteer, filmmaker, and critic. Fiercely independent and a man of conviction, he once declared that he never wrote even one sentence to entertain his readers. His primary goal, in all his writings, is to ‘sing the glory of man.’ Asked if he was a committed writer, he answered: “Yes, I am committed to life at the conscious level’. He added such a commitment could extend to Shaivam, Vaishnavam, Marxism or Communism.
Jayakanthan’s vast literary output includes 200 short stories, 35 novellas, 15 full novels and 15 collections of essays. Critics have described the Tamil literary scene of the Sixties as the ‘Age of Jayakanthan.’
Jayakanthan received the distinguished Jnaanapeeth Award for his “Outstanding contribution towards the shaping of India’s literature” and “his deep, sensitive understanding of human nature.”
Jayakanthan is also the Fellow of the Indian Sahitya Akademi – the National Institute of Letters – and the recipient of awards from the Government of Tamil Nadu and the Tamil University of Tanjore.
