About The Author

Perumal Murugan is an Indian author, scholar and literary chronicler who writes in Tamil. He has six novels, four collections of short stories and four anthologies of poetry to his credit. Three of his novels have been translated into English: Seasons of the Palm, which was shortlisted for the Kiriyama Prize in 2005, Current Show and One Part Woman. He has received awards from the Government of Tamil Nadu as well as from Katha Books. He is a professor of Tamil at the Government Arts College in Namakkal.

In January 2015, he announced that he was giving up writing after he came under attack from Hindutva supporters who claimed that his novel Madhurobhagan, which was first published in 2010, is blasphemous. The novel explores the problems of caste divisions in the context of a childless marriage and alludes to real-life places and communities such that actual communities were considered to be slurred. The book has been translated into English as One Part Woman. He said on his Facebook page that “Perumal Murugan the writer is dead. As he is no God, he is not going to resurrect himself. He also has no faith in rebirth. An ordinary teacher, he will live as P. Murugan. Leave him alone.