P Narayana Kurup

P. Narayana Kurup was a Malayalam poet and literary critic, and a connoisseur and critic of the classical theatre forms Kathakali and Koodiyattam. He was named for the Padma Shri in 2022 in the field of literature and education, from Kerala ^[1].

From Harippad

Kurup was born on 5 September 1934 in Harippad, Alappuzha district, and grew up watching Kathakali in the grounds of the local Subramanya Swami temple ^[2]. After an MA in English literature he joined the Central Information Service and worked as assistant editor and then editor in the Publications Division ^[2]. He was later research officer at the Kerala Bhasha Institute and consulting editor of the Kerala government’s encyclopaedia project ^[2].

Poet and critic

His first collection, Kadalaasu Kappal (1962), was for children, and its poem Ayyappa Sankaran became a school favourite ^[2]. He went on to publish more than ten collections, including Hamsadhwani, Nishagandhi and Dashapushpam ^[2]. Some of his poems satirise hollow urban life and political opportunism, and he wrote some of his strongest satire during the Emergency ^[2]. His criticism includes Kaviyum Kavithayum, a two-volume study of six Malayalam poets of the 1950s and 1960s used in university courses ^[2]. He also translated Goethe’s Faust and plays by Shakespeare into Malayalam, and wrote biographies of Jawaharlal Nehru and Jayaprakash Narayan ^[2].

He served on the governing body of Kerala Kalamandalam and as a trustee of Bharat Bhavan, Bhopal ^[2]. He won the Kerala Sahitya Akademi Award for criticism in 1986 and for poetry, for Nishagandhi, in 1991 ^[2].

Kurup died in Thiruvananthapuram in 2026, aged 92 ^[3].