M. Ramalingam (b. 1939), is a Tamil literary critic, poet, author and translator from

Tamil Nadu Tamil Nadu (; , TN) is the southernmost States and union territories of India, state of India. The List of states and union territories of India by area, tenth largest Indian state by area and the List of states and union territories of Indi ...

India India, officially the Republic of India, is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, seventh-largest country by area; the List of countries by population (United Nations), most populous country since ...

. He is the recipient of the 1981

Sahitya Akademi Award The Sahitya Akademi Award is a literary honour in India, which the Sahitya Akademi, India's National Academy of Letters, annually confers on writers of the most outstanding books of literary merit published in any of the 22 languages of the ...

for Tamil . He is popularly known as Ezhil mudhalvan. His works serve as the source of much research in the field of Tamil fiction.

Early life

Ma. Ramalingam was born on October 5, 1930, to V. Manickam and Ma. Ramamrutha Ammaiyar in

Thiruthuraipoondi Thiruthuraipoondi is a municipality in Tiruvarur district in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu. Thiruthuraipoondi is an agricultural town located south of Thiruvarur district. The town is located at a distance of 28 km (17 mi) from the dis ...

. He did his higher education in Thiruthuraipoondi and his Tamil B.A. in Kumbakonam Government College. He then did his M.A. at Madras Presidency College and was awarded four gold medals for securing the first rank.

Career

He joined the Tamil Nadu Educational Service in 1964 and later became professor and head of the Tamil department at

Government Arts College, Kumbakonam The Government Arts College, previously known as the Government Arts College for Men, is an autonomous college based in the town of Kumbakonam in Tamil Nadu, India. This college is functioning under Bharathidasan University. The vice-chancellor ...

. He obtained his PhD in Tamil literature in 1975 from the

University of Madras The University of Madras is a public university, public State university (India), state university in Chennai (Madras), Tamil Nadu, India. Established in 1857, it is one of the oldest and most prominent universities in India, incorporated by an ...

. He was mentored by

Mu. Varadarajan Mu. Varadarajan, also known as Mu. Va. and Varatharasanar, was a Tamil scholar, author and academic from Tamil Nadu, India. He was born in an aristocratic Thuluva Vellala family near Vellore. He was a prolific writer whose published works includ ...

. He worked as an assistant professor at Madras Presidency College from 1964 to 1974. He went on to serve as the head professor and vice-chancellor at Mannargudi, Ramanathapuram, Coimbatore, Rasipuram, Ponneri and Kumbakonam colleges. Ramalingam was a member of the General Council and Executive Committee of the

Sahitya Akademi The Sahitya Akademi, India's National Academy of Letters, is an organisation dedicated to the promotion of literature in the languages of India. Founded on 12 March 1954, it is supported by, though independent of the Indian government. Its off ...

from 1988-92. He was also a member of the 'Tamil Nadu Poets' group,' run by K.A.P. Viswanatham, for twenty years. He retired as the head of the Tamil Department at Bharathidasan University, Tiruchirappalli from 1985 to 2000. In November 2024, the Tamil Nadu government honoured his contributions to Tamil literature and nationalized his works.

Literary work

Ramalingam's first collection of poems was published in 1965. His first poem ''Sweet Memories'' was published in 1966 by the ''Kuil'' magazine run by

Bharathidasan Bharathidasan Birth name: K. Subburathinam, the person's given name: Subburathinam, father's given name: Kanagasabai. (K. Subburathinam by the prevalent patronymic initials as prefix naming system in Tamil Nadu and it is Subburathinam Kanag ...

. He wrote many poems in the magazine 'Ilakiyam', run by poet

Suratha Suratha () (23 November 1921 – 20 June 2006) was a Tamil poet, recognized for his poetic use of similes. He was called "Uvamai Kavignar" ("poet of comparisons"). Early life Suratha was born in Thanjavur, Tamil Nadu as T. Rajagopal on 23 Nove ...

. Ramalingam was a close associate of poets

, Perumazhi and

. He has written seven volumes of Tamil literary criticism and has won several awards for his work. In 1981, Ramalingam was awarded the

for

Tamil Tamil may refer to: People, culture and language * Tamils, an ethno-linguistic group native to India, Sri Lanka, and some other parts of Asia **Sri Lankan Tamils, Tamil people native to Sri Lanka ** Myanmar or Burmese Tamils, Tamil people of Ind ...

for his critical work on modern Tamil prose ''Pudhiya Urai Nadai'' (lit. The New Prose).Tamil Sahitya Akademi Awards 1955-2007

Official website. He translated Indian literature from English into Tamil. He translated

Rabindranath Tagore Rabindranath Thakur (; anglicised as Rabindranath Tagore ; 7 May 1861 – 7 August 1941) was a Bengalis, Bengali polymath who worked as a poet, writer, playwright, composer, philosopher, social reformer, and painter of the Bengal Renai ...

's book ''Kabirdas's Hundred Songs'' from English into Tamil. This book was published by 'Tamil Wave' publishing house in 2011, the 150th birth anniversary of Tagore. He has participated as a researcher in several seminars and workshops in many countries such as Malaysia, Yugoslavia, and Singapore.

References

1939 births Living people 20th-century Indian translators Recipients of the Sahitya Akademi Award in Tamil Tamil writers People from Tiruvarur district Indian Tamil people Indian literary critics Scholars from Tamil Nadu {{India-writer-stub