Kamala Das Brief Bio

Kamala Das was born in conservative Hindu Nair family on 31st March 1934 in Thrissur, India. She was an Indian Poet who published the first book of poetry collection Summer in Calcutta in 1965, The Descendants in 1967, the Old Playhouse and Other Poems in 1973 and Only the Soul Knows How to Sing in 1997. She has published several novels and short stories in Malayalam, under the pen name Madhavikutty. She expresses frankly about female desire from certain personal experiences. She wrote Ente Katha in 1973 at the age of 42 in Malayalam and later translated in English as My Story in 1976.

Her English works include novel named Alphabet of Lust (1976) and two collections of short stories, A Doll for the Child Prostitute in 1977, and Padmavati the Harlot and Other Stories in 1992. She was awarded many literary awards like a PEN Prize in 1963, the Kerala Sahitya Akademi Award for Fiction in 1969, the Chaman Lal award for Journalism in 1971, the Asian World Prize for Literature in 1985, and the Indira Priyadharshini Vrikshamitra Award in 1988. She was awarded an Honorary Doctorate by the World Academy of Arts and Culture, Taiwan, in 1984. Later, she converted to Islam on December 11, 1999 at the age of 65 and renamed as Kamala Surayya. She died on 31st May 2009 in Pune.