Kamala Surayya
Indian author and poet (1934–2009)
Kamala Surayya (born Kamala; 31 March 1934 – 31 May 2009), also known by her one-time pen name Madhavikutty and married name Kamala Das, was an Indian poet in English as well as an author in Malayalam from Kerala, India. Her fame in Kerala primarily stems from her short stories and autobiography, My Story, whereas her body of work in English, penned under the pseudonym Kamala Das, is renowned for its poems and candid autobiography. Her works are known for originality, versatility and indigenous flavour of the soil. She was also a widely read columnist and wrote on diverse topics including women's issues, child care, politics, etc. Her liberal treatment of female sexuality, marked her as an iconoclast in popular culture of her generation. On 31 May 2009, aged 75, she died at Jehangir Hospital in Pune.
Early life and childhood
Kamala Das was born in Punnayurkulam, Ponnani taluk, Malabar District, British India (present-day Thrissur district, Kerala) on 31 March 1934, to V. M. Nair, a managing editor of the widely circulated Malayalam daily Mathrubhumi, and poet Nalapat Balamani Amma, a renowned Malayali family. Kamala got her family name, Nalapat, through matrilineal succession.
She spent her childhood in Calcutta, where her father was employed as a senior officer in the Walford Transport Company that sold Bentley and Rolls-Royce automobiles, and the Nalapat ancestral home in Punnayurkulam.
Like her mother Balamani Amma, Kamala Das also excelled in writing.
“Kamala Surayya” enters the record as indian author and poet (1934–2009). Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Kamala, Surayya and Indian can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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Biographical claims are most persuasive when dates, appointments and relationships can be traced to records created close to the events described. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 19, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q594565. VIAF identifies the subject as 87817256. The Library of Congress control number is n50037929. 2 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1934 and 2009.
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This entry incorporates text from “Kamala Surayya” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.