Sankarankutty Kunjiraman Pottekkatt (14 March 1913 – 6 August 1982) was an Indian writer of Malayalam literature and a politician from Kerala, India. He was also a great traveller among the Keralites, who wrote many travelogues for the people who have been unintroduced to the outside world. He was the author of nearly sixty books which include ten novels, twenty-four collections of short stories, three anthologies of poems, eighteen travelogues, four plays, a collection of essays and a couple of books based on personal reminiscences. He is a recipient of Kerala Sahitya Akademi Award for Novel, Sahitya Akademi Award and the Jnanpith Award. His works have been translated into English, Italian, Russian, German and Czech, besides all major Indian languages. Biography S. K. Pottekkatt was born on March 14, 1913, in Thiyya family Calicut (Kozhikode) to Kunjiraman Pottekkat, an English school teacher and his wife, Kittuli. After early schooling at Ganapath School, he matriculated from Zamorin's High School in Calicut in 1929 and passed the intermediate examination from Zamorin's Guruvayurappan College, Calicut in 1934 but could not find a job for three years, a period which he utilised for studying classics from Indian and western literature. In 1937, he joined Calicut Gujarati School as a teacher where he taught for almost three years. He was involved with activities of the Indian National Congress and attended the Tripuri session of 1939 for which he resigned from the job as the school authorities did not allow him to leave of absence. Subsequently, he moved to Bombay and Lucknow where he stayed until 1945, doing many jobs. After returning to Kerala in 1945, he travelled to many parts of India and went on his first overseas tour in 1949 when he visited Africa, Switzerland, Italy, Germany, France and England. In 1952, he again went overseas to visit Ceylon, Malaya, and Indonesia. Pottekkatt married Jayavalli in 1950 and the couple had two sons and two daughters. His wife died in 1980 and two years later, he suffered a paralytic stroke in July 1982, and he died on August 6, 1982, in a private hospital in Calicut. Literary career and travels Pottekkatt published his first story, "Rajaneethi", in the college magazine of Zamorin's Guruvayurappan College in 1928. "Makane Konna Madyam" (poem published in Athmavidya Kahalam) and "Hindu Muslim Maithri" (story published in Deepam) were some of his notable early works. The story "Vydyutha Shakthi" came