Kamala Das

Kamala Das (1934-2009) was a major Indian English poet and an important Malayalam writer. She was born into a distinguished literary family. Her mother, Balamani Amma, was a well-known Malayalam poet and her grand-uncle Nalapat Narayana Menon was a renowned writer and translator. She grew up in Punnayurkulam, her ancestral village in Kerala, and in Calcutta where her parents lived. She was married off at the age of fifteen, and began writing and publishing while in her teens. With her taboo-breaking early poetry and her controversial autobiography, Kamala became an icon for Indian women. In English, she published six collections of poetry in her lifetime-Summer in Calcutta (1965), The Descendants (1967), The Old Playhouse and Other Poems (1973), Collected Poems vol. I (1984), Only the Soul Knows How to Sing: Selections from Kamala Das (1996), Encountering Kamala (2007)-and her autobiography, My Story (1976). She was recognized with many literary prizes, including the Sahitya Akademi and the Vayalar awards.