During a time when other writers sent their work only at the behest of the publisher, a Tamil writer kept sending his manuscripts despite only receiving notes of regret. Today, with over 200 short stories, nine novels, and several non-fiction essays and translations, Ashokamitran is seen as a major contributor to the modern history of Tamil literature. His nonlinear and non-preachy creative works are critically seen for their subdued aesthetics and absence of extravaganza. Unlike others, he trudged a lonesome path through an idiosyncratic style of writing.
Kalyan Raman, who translated Ashokamitran’s work to English, told ThePrint: “There is not enough discourse on him at the national level. Though he has been translated widely, his oeuvre is not introduced properly to readers in other languages. He wrote mostly about the poor and powerless, paying attention to their essential humanity. He has explored human reality in an impressive range of contexts, framed inexorably by the confusion and conflicts of a traditional society during its reluctant transition to modernity. There are many excellent nonfiction works — essays, memoirs, commentary, and criticism — written by him that need to be translated.”
Ashokamitran, whose ancestors belonged to Mayiladuthurai, was born as Jagadeesan Thyagarajan in Nizam-ruled Secunderabad in 1931. His father, Jagadeesan, was employed with the Nizam State Railways. After his schooling in Secunderabad, he enrolled in Nizam College where he completed his B.Sc in 1950.
In his six-decade-long creative life, he would often return to his early experiences of growing up in Secunderabad amidst the fall of Nizam in the wake of Indian independence, as is visible in his work Pathinettavathu Atchakkodu (The Eighteenth Parallel). In the book, he recalls a vivid memory after 25 years. “If I had gone there in between, the changes would have affected the picture I had in my mind”, he had said in an interview.