A Ayyappan.

A Ayyappan.

Born:                    27 October 1949
                               Nemom, Thiruvanathapuram, Kerala, India
Died:                     21 October 2010 (aged 60)
                               Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala, India
Occupation:        Poet
                               Essayist
                               Translator
                                Lyricist
                               Traveller
                                Editor
                                Proof reader
                                Political worker
Nationality:          Indian
Notable works:   Veyil Thinnunna Pakshi
                                Greeshmame Sakhee
Notable awards: Asan Poetry Prize (2010)
                                Kerala Sahitya Akademi Award (1999)

A. Ayyappan (27 October 1949 – 21 October 2010) was a Malayalam poet in the modernist period. He is considered as the icon of anarchism in Malayalam poetry.

Literary career:

Ayyappan started writing poetry when he was a student. He became involved in the Communist Party and joined the staff of Janayugom, the party newspaper. Ayyappan is well known for his heart touching poems and his bohemian lifestyle. Ayyappan, who got intoxicated by the creativity of turning the pain of the homeless into poetry, slept on shop verandas and wrote poems — which were untainted depiction of life. In his own words, destitution and insecurity transformed him into a poet. He can be considered the icon of anarchism in Kerala. He was a close friend of the late filmmaker John Abraham. Ayyappan was also famous as a great lover of sunlight ('veyil' in Malayalam language) and a passionate adherent of Communism.

"Though a bohemian in the tradition of P. Kunhiraman Nair, Malayalam's celebrated poet of yesteryear, Ayyappan was amazingly rigorous in his poetic expression. Often, the street was his home, for homes seldom welcomed the poet in. But few writers in these times can claim to have had so vast a circle of loving and adoring friends, a large majority of them young men and women

Awards:

He won the Asan Smaraka Kavitha Puraskaram (Asan Poetry Prize), one of the highest literary awards in Malayalam literature, for the year 2010. Ayyappan was also a recipient of Kerala Sahitya Akademi Award for Poetry in 1999. Ayyappan's life has been documented on a short film, Ithrayum Yathabhagam, made by Odessa Sathyan, one of the founders of Odessa Collective, a people's film movement in Kerala.

Important works:

# Mulamthandinu Rajayakshmaavu
# Yangjam
# Ente shavapetti chumakunnavarodu
# Veyil Thinnunna Pakshi
# Greeshmame sakhee
# Karuppu
# Budhanum Aattinkuttiyum
# Chitharogaaspatryile Dinangal
# Malamillaatha Pambu
# Greeshmavum Kanneerum
# Tettiyodunna SeconduSoochi
# Kalkkariyude Niramullavar (Collection of Poems)