he had no desire to repeat. Later novels The third novel, Gurusagaram (The Infinity of Grace, 1987) differs in language, vision and characterisation from the earlier works. It is on the immanence of Guru in the life of the seeker. Guru is everywhere and is manifested in everybody. The seeker partakes of the grace of the Guru as he happens for him unawares and unconditional. The central character is a journalist from Kerala, working in Delhi, going on an assignment to report the Indo-Pak war of 1971. He undergoes an excruciating experience both spiritually and physically to learn how to annihilate all forms of ego. Gurusagaram fetched him the Vayalar Award, the central Sahitya Akademi Award and the Kerala Sahithya Academy Award in 1991. Madhuram Gayathi (1990) has been termed as "a fantastic allegory fusing mythology, spirituality and ecology". It is an allegorical fable of the post-Holocaust world with its lovelessness and disharmony. Pravachakante Vazhi (The Path of the Prophet; 1992) emphasises the vision that intuition is perennial and it is one and the same always. This oneness of the revelation makes the ways of all prophets the same. This great education in spirituality is got in those barbarous days of Delhi when the Sikhs were maniacally hunted after and mercilessly butchered following the murder of Indira Gandhi. Vijayan's last novel Thalamurakal (Generations; 1997) is autobiographical to a great extent. It is historical to a still greater extent. Beyond autobiography and history, the novel is a journey down the collective experiences of a family in search of an awareness about oneself and his clan. This search is of great importance when the collective experiences of the subculture are very bitter and the individual sense of the clan identity is much superior. The novel is a narration of four generations in Ponmudi family in Palakkad, Kerala. Other literary works He wrote his first short story, "Tell Father Gonsalves", in 1953. He wrote many volumes of short stories, the first volume of which was published in 1957 – Three Wars. The stories, which range from the comic to the philosophical, show an astonishing diversity of situations, tones and styles. O. V. Vijayan's best known collection in English is After the Hanging and Other Stories which contains several jewel-like masterpieces, in particular the title story about a poor, semi-literate peasant going to the jail to receive the body of his son who has