Thakazhi Sivasankara Pillai

Thakazhi Sivasankara Pillai (b. 1912) started off as a small-town lawyer but took to full time writing later and won himself the Sahitya Akademi Award (1957), Soviet Land-Nehru Award (1975) and Jnanpith Award (1984). His Chemmeen (The Shrimps) is one of the few works of fiction in an Indian language to gain worldwide recognition. The novel has been translated in all the major Indian languages and also in quite a few foreign languages. The film version of Chemmeen received the President’s Gold Medal in 1966.