M.R. Renukumar

Born in 1969, M.R. Renukumar is best known as a poet and the recipient of the 2019 Kerala Sahitya Akademi award for his poetry collection Kothiyan. He has published nine volumes to date, Veshakkaya (winner of the 2008 SBT Kavitha award), Pachakuppi, Parichuputha and Palathine Thodumbol, being a few of them. He has also penned five collections of short stories, two travelogues and translated the graphic novel Bhimayana: Experiences of Untouchability into Malayalam. A collection of Malayalam Dalit short stories edited by him was published in English by Navayana as Don’t Want Caste (2017). He won the 2010 Children’s Literature award and the 2018 FOKANA award for his short-story collections Nalaam Classile Varaal and Aracycle respectively. Apart from being a prolific writer, he is also a gifted painter.