Poet, lyricist and scholar, Jnanpith and Padma Vibhushan awardee ONV Kurup (1931–2016) has been a towering presence in Kerala’s cultural landscape for more than six decades. A loved and venerated teacher of Malayalam literature, a powerful orator and public intellectual, his poetry reverberates with the pains, hopes and dreams of the deprived, and the eternal value of love. This selection of poems, beautifully translated by K. Jayakumar, celebrates his humanist vision and his multidimensional genius.
The poems and songs of ONV, as he is known, have an unmistakable honesty, gravitas and restraint. Distinctive for their blend of spoken Malayalam with folk lyrics, ballads and epics, images drawn from everyday life, and an enduring empathy for the oppressed and the abandoned, ONV’s poetry conveys his universal vision of an equal, free and just world for all people across class and caste. His early belief in the essential unity of humankind and human progress continued till the end to be the core of his poetry, even as it addressed the vicissitudes of history and changing literary trends. Encompassing themes ranging from nature, ecology, mythology, history, nostalgia, memory, the flowering of humankind, reflections on mortality, to the cosmic dimension, his rich oeuvre proves that ‘nothing under the sun is alien to poetry.’
This volume will be a treat for poetry lovers, for those familiar with ONV and those reading him for the first time.