Kavery Nambisan is an Indian surgeon and novelist. Her career in medicine has been a strong influence in her fiction.

Life

Kavery Nambisan was born in Palangala village in south

Kodagu Kodagu (also known by its former name Coorg) is an administrative district in the Karnataka state of India. Before 1956, it was an administratively separate Coorg State, at which point it was merged into an enlarged Mysore State. It occupies ...

, India, in a politician's family. Her father, C.M. Poonacha, was at one time a Union Railway Minister. She spent her early years in

Madikeri Madikeri is a hill station town in Madikeri taluk and headquarters of Kodagu district in Karnataka, India. Etymology Madikeri was known as ''Muddu Raja Keri'', which meant Mudduraja's town, was named after the prominent Haleri king Muddura ...

. She studied medicine in

St. John's Medical College St. John's Medical College is a private medical college and hospital situated in Bangalore, India. It is part of the St. John's National Academy of Health Sciences run by the Catholic Bishops' Conference of India. It was established in 1963. T ...

Bangalore Bangalore (), officially Bengaluru (), is the capital and largest city of the Indian state of Karnataka. It has a population of more than and a metropolitan population of around , making it the third most populous city and fifth most ...

from 1965 and then studied surgery at the

University of Liverpool , mottoeng = These days of peace foster learning , established = 1881 – University College Liverpool1884 – affiliated to the federal Victoria Universityhttp://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukla/2004/4 University of Manchester Act 200 ...

, England, where she obtained the

FRCS Fellowship of the Royal Colleges of Surgeons (FRCS) is a professional qualification to practise as a senior surgeon in Ireland or the United Kingdom. It is bestowed on an intercollegiate basis by the four Royal Colleges of Surgeons (the Royal C ...

qualification. She worked as a surgeon in various parts of rural India before moving to

Lonavala Lonavala (ISO 15919, ISO: Loṇāvaḷā) is a hill station town and a Municipal Council in the Pune district, Maharashtra, India. It is about west of Pune and to the east of Mumbai. It is known for its production of the hard candy ''chikki'' a ...

to start a free medical centre for migrant labourers. Nambisan works as surgeon and medical advisor at the Tata Coffee Hospital in

, Karnataka, and is the Chief Medical Officer for

Tata Coffee Tata Coffee is an Indian company that produces coffee, tea, pepper and related products. It is a subsidiary of Tata Consumer Products, and is part of the Tata Group. Tata Coffee owns 19 coffee estates in South India, spread across the districts ...

. She has created several programmes for child immunisation and family planning for the rural communities. She is vocal in her critiques of urban centred health planning. Nambisan was married to Vijay Nambisan, a journalist and poet. She has a daughter, Chetana, from an earlier marriage to Dr K.R. Bhatt, which lasted eighteen years.

Literary career

Kavery Nambisan began by writing under her first married name Kavery Bhatt for children's magazines. She wrote stories for the now defunct children's magazine ''

Target Target may refer to: Physical items * Shooting target, used in marksmanship training and various shooting sports ** Bullseye (target), the goal one for which one aims in many of these sports ** Aiming point, in field artillery, fi ...

''. She also contributed to '' Femina'' and ''Eve's Weekly''. Nambisan has authored several novels for adults, each with widely differing themes. Her first book, published under the name Kavery Bhatt, ''The Truth (almost) About Bharat,'' is the story of a rebellious young medical student who runs away from medical college, and begins a cross-country road trip on his motorcycle. The book went out of print and was recently re-released. Her second novel, ''The Scent of Pepper'' (1996) was set in her birthplace,

and is a portrait of the life and culture of its people, through the eyes of a family from colonial rule to independence. ''Mango-coloured Fish'' (1998) concerns a woman whose marriage has been arranged to a man she does not love. ''On Wings of Butterflies'' (2002) is set in the women's movement in independent India and narrates the story of a group of women entering politics. ''The Hills of Angheri'' (2005) draws from Nambisan's own experiences as a doctor, tracing a young woman's medical career. Her sixth novel, ''The Story that Must Not Be Told'' was shortlisted for the

DSC Prize for South Asian Literature The DSC Prize for South Asian Literature is an international literary prize awarded annually to writers of any ethnicity or nationality writing about South AsiaNote: South Asia for the purposes of the prize is defined as India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka ...

in 2012, as well as the

Man Asian Literary Prize The Man Asian Literary Prize was an annual literary award between 2007 and 2012, given to the best novel by an Asian writer, either written in English or translated into English, and published in the previous calendar year. It is awarded to writer ...

in 2008. Her seventh and most recent novel, ''A Town Like Ours'' (2014) is an account of the lives of several people, narrated by a sex worker living in a small town, and engages with themes of identity and industrialisation. Nambisan's story ''Dr Sad and the Power Lunch'' was joint runner-up in the third Outlook-Picador non-fiction contest in 2003. She has also contributed fiction to ''

Indian Literature Indian literature refers to the literature produced on the Indian subcontinent until 1947 and in the Republic of India thereafter. The Republic of India has 22 officially recognised languages. The earliest works of Indian literature were o ...

'', the journal published by the

Sahitya Akademi The Sahitya Akademi, India's National Academy of Letters, is an organisation dedicated to the promotion of literature in the languages of India. Founded on 12 March 1954, it is supported by, though independent of, the Indian government. Its of ...

(India's National Academy of Letters). She has also contributed some works of criticism, including a piece on 'New Issues in Fiction' to the journal ''

.''

Awards and recognition

Literary Awards and Recognition: Kavery Nambisan was a ''

Coorg Person of the Year Kodagu (also known by its former name Coorg) is an administrative district in the Karnataka state of India. Before 1956, it was an administratively separate Coorg State, at which point it was merged into an enlarged Mysore State. It occupies ...

'' in 2005.

Publications

*''Once Upon a Forest'',

Children's Book Trust Children's Book Trust (CBT) is an Indian children and young adult book publisher. It was founded by cartoonist K. Shankar Pillai, popularly known as Shankar, in 1957 and was inaugurated by the President of India Dr. S. Radhakrishnan. It is hous ...

, India, 1986. (As Kavery Bhatt.) *''Kitty Kite'', Children's Book Trust, India, 1987. (As Kavery Bhatt.) *''The Truth (almost) About Bharat'', Penguin India, 1991. (As Kavery Bhatt.) *''The Scent of Pepper'', Penguin India, 1996. *''Mango-coloured fish'', Penguin India, 1998. *''On Wings of Butterflies'', Penguin India, 2002. *''The Hills of Angheri'', Penguin, 2005. *''The Story that Must Not Be Told'', Penguin, 2010. *''A Town Like Ours'', Aleph Book Company, 2014. *''A Luxury Called Health'', Speaking Tiger, 2021.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Nambisan, Kavery Novelists from Karnataka Indian women children's writers Indian children's writers Year of birth missing (living people) Kodava people People from Kodagu district Living people International Writing Program alumni 20th-century Indian novelists Women writers from Karnataka Indian women novelists 20th-century Indian women writers