About Me
- Neela Padmanabhan/நீல பத்மநாபன்
- Neela Padmanabhan (b.1938) is a leading figure in the arena of Tamil literature, but writing in Malayalam and English too. An engineer by profession, a humanist by instinct, he has straddled the scene like a Colossus, creating novels (20), short stories (170) and poems (160) and critical essays (150) that have found warm reception from the readers. Awards and honours (Sahitya Akademi award, Annamalai Chettiar award, Tamil Nadu Govt award, Basha Bharathi award of Central Institute of Indian languages etc) he has reaped in abundance. Maybe it is this uniqueness that had Tamil literary critic Ka Na Su write about Thalaimuraikal as one of the ‘Ten Great Novels of India’. The man who has earned such praises is none other than Neela Padmanabhan. An eminent litterateur, a couple of weeks before his 75th birth anniversary he was honoured by Ilakkiya Chinthanai, one of the prominent Tamil literary organisations in the State, for his contribution to literature. To encourage young writers, he instituted two awards titled ‘Neela Padmam’ and ‘Thalaimuraikal’ for best poem and short story respectively, every year on his birthday (April 26th) through the Thiruvananthapuram Tamil Sangam.