ASHOKAMITRAN (1931-2017) was born in Secunderabad (Telangana) and moved to Chennai at the age of twenty. One of the most prominent figures of the contemporary Tamil creative writing, he wrote more than two hundred and fifty short stories, and a dozen novellas and novels. His writing is known for subtlety of expression and understatement. His novels and short stories are marked by satire and engrossing portrayal of people who thrive in life despite hardships.Ashokamitran received several honours and awards including the Sahitya Akademi Award in 1996 for his short story collection Appavin Snehithar ('Friend of Father'). He won the Ilakkiya Chinthanai award twice (1977 and 1984). He was an official invitee to the Frankfurt Book Fair 1986 and the Munich Book Fair 2002 to represent Tamil literature. In 1990, he was conferred the Senior Fellowship to Outstanding Persons in the Fields of Culture by the Ministry of Culture, Government of India. In 1999, he was awarded the K.K. Birla Foundation Fellowship in Comparative Indian Literature for study on the origin and development of Indian novel in Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam, Kannada and Bengali. Other awards include MGR award in 2007, NTR award in 2012 and award of the Bharatiya Bhasha Parishad, Kolkata in 2013, and Thiru Vi.Ka. award of the Tamil Nadu Government in 2014 (in addition to three other awards of the Tamil Nadu Government).