Arulmozhi (born 1962) known under the

pen name A pen name, also called a ''nom de plume'' or a literary double, is a pseudonym (or, in some cases, a variant form of a real name) adopted by an author and printed on the title page or by-line of their works in place of their real name. A pen na ...

of Sakthi Arulanandam, is an Indian

ecofeminist Ecofeminism is a branch of feminism and political ecology. Ecofeminist thinkers draw on the concept of gender to analyse the relationships between humans and the natural world. The term was coined by the French writer Françoise d'Eaubonne in h ...

poet, author and artist from the state of

Tamil Nadu Tamil Nadu (; , TN) is a States and union territories of India, state in southern India. It is 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 India ...

. She has been the recipient of the Tanjai Prakash Award, the Sikaram Award and the Tiruppur Arima Sakthi Award for her poetry. Arulanandam is also described as a successful artists whose paintings have featured in a number of small magazines. According to ''

The Hindu ''The Hindu'' is an Indian English-language daily newspaper owned by The Hindu Group, headquartered in Chennai, Tamil Nadu. It began as a weekly in 1878 and became a daily in 1889. It is one of the Indian newspapers of record and the secon ...

'', her working-class background, dignity for labour and a passion for art and a world of ideas has left an influential mark in her contributions to

Tamil literature Tamil literature has a rich and long literary tradition spanning more than two thousand years. The oldest extant works show signs of maturity indicating an even longer period of evolution. Contributors to the Tamil literature are mainly from T ...

Biography

She was born in the village of Sevvaipettai in the Salem district of Tamil Nadu and became an electrical repair worker for a living while remaining unmarried. In her testimony, she states that after her mother died when she was in 9th grade, she had to quit school to help in household chores and that she decided to remain unmarried because she didn't want to follow the same old path of serving a man. She had continued to read the works of Tamil writers such as

Jayakanthan D. Jayakanthan (24 April 1934 – 8 April 2015), popularly known as JK, was an Indian writer, journalist, orator, filmmaker, critic and activist. Born in Cuddalore, he dropped out of school at the age of 9 and went to Madras, where he join ...

and

Akilan Akilandam, better known by his pen name Akilan, was an Indian writer and novelist who wrote in Tamil. He was attracted by Gandhian philosophy during his school days and he discontinued his college education at Pudukkottai to join the freedom st ...

and cleared her 10th grade (

secondary education Secondary education or post-primary education covers two phases on the International Standard Classification of Education scale. Level 2 or lower secondary education (less commonly junior secondary education) is considered the second and final pha ...

) at a later date for a typewriting job. At the same time she began working as an assistant at an electrical repair shop and eventually learned how to do repairs herself, deciding to stick to it as there were no fixed working hours at such shops and she could dedicate some of her time to reading, writing and drawing. Her first poems were published when she was 17–18 years old which was published in the ''

Maalai Malar ''Maalai Malar'' is a daily evening Tamil newspaper. It is owned by Daily Thanti group. It was founded by S. P. Adithanar in 1977 at Coimbatore. Maalai Malar has twelve editions published from Chennai, Vellore, Dindigul, Thanjavur, Tirunelve ...

.'' As of January 2019, Arulanandam has three published anthologies of her poems and twenty five short stories.

Selected works

* ''Irunmaiyilirunthu'' (''From Darkness'') * ''Paravaikal Purakkanitha Nagaram'' (''The City Deserted by Birds'') * ''Thoduvanamattra Kadal'' (''The Horizonless Ocean'')

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Arulanandam, Sakthi Living people 1962 births Tamil poets 20th-century Indian women writers 21st-century Indian women writers 21st-century Indian writers Indian feminist writers Indian women poets 20th-century Indian poets 21st-century Indian poets 20th-century Indian short story writers 21st-century Indian short story writers Indian women short story writers