Thangavel Palamalai India

Bio
Thangavel was born in 1943 to middle-class farmers in Tamil Nadu. Holder of master’s degrees from Annamalai University and Madurai Kamarajar University, he started his career as assistant professor in Tamil and worked at several government arts and science colleges in Tamil Nadu. He has published nine books of poetry, six books of essays and two books of songs. Many of his poems have been translated into Malayalam, Hindi and English. Some of the notable awards he has received are Sirpy Ilakkia Award (1997) and KAP Viswanathan Award (2008).


Who or what book would you like to snuggle under covers with, and why?
“S. Ponnuthurai (Shortly ESPO) is my favorite writer to whom I have admired. He is the well-known tamil writer who carved a niche of his own in Modern Tamil writing is a transparent documentation of a hundred years of literacy, cultural and political life of Tamils in Sri Lanka.  Born in Nallur of Sri Lanka in 1932, he left the country in 1981 due to political victimization. As an extensive traveler, he visited all the five continents of the world, and lined in three continents.  He was Head of the Department in English in Sakoto State of Nigeria.  In 1990, he became the citizen of Australia.
   
He is a writer of all genre – poetry, short story, novel, drama, creative essays, and literacy criticism which challenge the caste system, religious orthodoxy, political corruptions, the hypocritical outcries of various groups of Tamil literacy world. 

Interweaving his personal life with cultural and political aspects of his time, Espo discusses many key issues, proving himself not only as an outstanding creative writer, but also, a pungent critic of out time.”

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