Renowned Malayalam writer and Kerala Sahitya Akademi Award winner Sarah Thomas passed away in Thiruvananthapuram on Friday, March 31. The 88-year-old, whose wide repertoire of literary works includes at least 17 novels and more than a hundred short stories, had been suffering from age-related ailments for a while. She was at her daughter’s residence in Nandavanam when she breathed her last.
Condoling the writer’s demise, Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan said, “Sarah Thomas raised Malayalam literature to new levels of expressionism. Through her, Malayalam experienced nuanced reflections of the inner lives of people across caste and class hierarchies. Her works had projected and upheld the feminine identity even before the feminist ideology began to gain traction in Malayalam literature.”
Sarah is best known for her novel Narmadipudava, for which she was presented with the Kerala Sahitya Akademi Award in 1979. Narmadipudava is the tale of a Tamil Brahmin widow, tied to the shackles of caste and gender traditions in Kerala. Her 1982 novel Daivamakkal, its protagonist a Dalit medical student, is considered a seminal work in Kerala’s Dalit literature. It has been translated to English as Children of God by Sosanna Kuruvilla. In 2010, Sarah won a second Kerala Sahitya Akademi Award for her contribution to Malayalam literature.
Born in 1934, Sarah was one of the pioneering women writers of Malayalam literature. Her first novel, Jeevitham Enna Nadi, was published in 1968 at the age of 34. But it was her 1971 novel Murippadukal that got her noticed in the literary world. The novel follows the life of a young man and his struggle with his identity, as he gets uprooted from the Catholic orphanage he grew up in to his ancestral Hindu household.
Murippadukal was adapted into a film by filmmaker PA Backer as Manimuzhakkam in 1976, which went on to win critical acclaim and several awards including the National Film Award for Best Feature Film in Malayalam and the Kerala State Film Award for Best Film. Three more of her novels — Asthamayam, Pavizhamuthu, and Archana — have also been made into films.
As per reports, the funeral services will be held at her residence on April 1, and burial at the Pattoor Marthoma church cemetery.