Pattathuvila Karunakaran

Pattathuvila Karunakaran was a film producer and a writer mainly writing in Malayalam Literature. He was born in Kollam, India in the British era in 1925. He received his primary education at Craven School, Quilon, and Graduated from the Presidency College Madras. Then went to study law at the Government Law College but didn’t complete the course. He worked as a journalist in Kerala, Kaumudi, before going to the US to study Business Administration at Syracuse University, where he earned a master’s degree in business administration. After completing his master’s degree, he returned to his homeland – Kerala, where he worked as a manager in the Calicut branch of Pierse Leslie India Ltd.

He spent the rest of his life in Kozhikode in the popular Kozhikode cultural circles along with some notable writers like MT Vasudevan Nair, G Aravindan, Thikodiyan VKN, etc. Although he couldn’t achieve his ambition to study filmmaking, he collaborated with G Aravindan for the film Uttarayanam which was a huge success. Uttarayanam was awarded as the best film by the Kerala State Film Award and the Best feature film in Malayalam by the National Film Award. He became immensely popular after authoring Vimarsham.

In 1972 he was awarded the annual award by the Kerala Sahitya Akademi award for his short story Anthology, Muni. His other anthologies include Vimarsham, Bourgeois Snehithan, and Nattellikalude Jeevitham. Most of his stories heavily reflect on themes of identity crisis, betrayal, and sacrifice. As he started to gain popularity with his stories, his books were translated into English. Karunakaran and Saraswathi married and birthed two daughters, Anitha and Anuradha. Karunakaran died in 1987 at the age of 61.