Lalgudi Saptarishi Ramamrutham

Lalgudi Saptarishi Ramamrutham Biography

Lalgudi Saptarishi Ramamrutham, better known by his initials La Sa Ra was a great story teller belonging to Tamil literature.  This veteran writer lived during the period, 30 October 1916 – 30 October 2007 and authored 300 short stories, apart from 6 novels and 10 collections of essays. He is credited to bringing a new dimension to both the language and the content of Tamil fiction. He passed away on his 91^st birthday. Chintha nathi, a collection of autobiographical essays earned him Sahitya Akademi Award in 1989. He was a banker by profession and also worked as a typist in film studio.  

Lalgudi Saptarishi Ramamrutham hailed from Lalgudi of Tamil Nadu. One of the writers of the Manikodi era, he started writing at the age of 20. Initially he wrote in English, and then switched over to Tamil. Later he converted everything to his mother tongue Tamil. He was a banker who worked with PNB for long three decades till his retirement. Later he moved to Chennai where he continued with his writing.

Over a period of time, his labyrinthine sentence constructions earned him the reputation of being a ‘difficult’ writer. But his beauty of imagination with layers and mystery was appreciated by readers. His autobiographical jottings — Chintha Nathi won him the Sahithya Academy award in 1989. His themes and concepts swing between traditional values with joint family culture and modern life style, where his protagonist could accept the child born to his wife from an earlier pre-marital affair without any hesitation.

His works never failed to convey the depth and weight of the experience, in terms of expression. His concept of time was something ‘unique’, as per Dr. Gabriella Eichinger Ferro-Luzzi, who conducted extensive research on his works. His writings were inspired and spontaneous.

Published: September 15, 2018

Updated: September 15, 2018