Gopi T. Karuvath, who won
the first prize at the Short Story Segment of the Muttathu Varkey Global
Literary Awards Contest conducted by the Malayalee Association of America, is a
resident of Ahmedabad, Gujarat, India.
He was born in Edappal,
Kerala as the son of late Mr. M T Kumaran Nair and Mrs. Madhavi Amma.
[His father belonged to the renowned Madath Thekkeppat family in Kerala which
gave birth to the legendary Indian author, Mr. M T Vasudevan Nair.]
Gopi T. Karuvath has had
his higher education at two prestigious colleges under the then Kerala
University: Shri Guruvayurappan College, Kozhikode and Shri Kerala Varma
College, Thrissur. He took a Bachelor degree, specializing in English
Literature.
Subsequently, he left
Kerala for Gujarat in search of employment opportunities. And he commenced his
professional life at the National Institute of Design, Ahmedabad. He held
managerial positions at its Publications and Public Relations Departments
before he took voluntary retirement from NID services in 2003.
He has won a couple of
awards in short-story writing. His short-story entitled “The Fence” won an
award from the British Council Division in 1985. It was published in a
collection of short-stories brought out by the Orient Longman. In 1986, another
story, The Girl Who Loved a Shadow, bagged an award from the Times of India. Later, this story turned
out to be the springboard for a successful Malayalam movie, Pranayavarnangal.
Gopi T. Karuvath won the MAAM Muttathu Varkey Global Literary
Award (2014) for Short Story for his story called CHERIYAMMA (THE MATERNAL AUNT). At one level is is simply an
imaginative recapturing of his childhood as well as teenage memories surrounding the epileptic
attacks suffered by him and the superstitions associated with it. But at
another level it has psychological dimensions. And it is written in a lyrical
style.
His major work, so far,
is translating a celebrated Malayalam novel, Chila Visuddha
Janmangalute Viseshangal (originally authored by C. Ashraf) into
English. Gopi’s English
version, Of Some Holy Lives, has been
published by www.amazon.in as a Kindle Direct
Publishing edition. Renowned Indian author, Benyamin (author of the celebrated Goat Days), has written a fabulous
introduction to it.
Gopi T. Karuvath is the
Chief Editor of Mannom Vartha Pathrika (a bilingual cultural and literary periodical)
published from Ahmedabad.
His wife, Mrs. Thankam
Gopi, is a Teacher at Don Bosco English School in Ahmedabad. His elder son,
Harikumar K. Nair, is an Animation Professional rendering freelance services to
reputed film houses in Mumbai. And his younger son, Syam Narayan, is a
Businessman in Ahmedabad.