Balamani Amma

Balamani Amma (1909 – 2004) was an Indian poet who wrote in Malayalam, the language of Kerala. She is best known as the poet of motherhood, and her work holds a central place in twentieth-century Malayalam poetry.

She was born on 19 July 1909 at Nalappat, her ancestral home in Punnayurkulam, in what was then Malabar District of British India. She had no formal schooling. Her uncle, the poet Nalapat Narayana Menon, and the family's collection of books guided her into writing. At nineteen she married V. M. Nair, who later managed the widely read Malayalam newspaper Mathrubhumi, and she moved to Kolkata to live with him. After his death in 1977 she continued to write for decades.

Her first poem, "Kooppukai", appeared in 1930, and her first recognition came through an award from the former ruler of the Kingdom of Cochin. She published more than twenty poetry anthologies, along with prose and translations. Her verse centres on love for children and grandchildren, in a plain and intimate voice that won her readers of every age. For this reason she is called Amma (mother) and Muthassi (grandmother) of Malayalam poetry.

Her honours include the Padma Bhushan in 1987, the Saraswati Samman and the Ezhuthachan Award. Her daughter, the writer Kamala Das, also known as Kamala Surayya, translated one of her best-known poems, "The Pen", which describes a mother's loneliness. Balamani Amma died in 2004 after almost five years with Alzheimer's disease. She is remembered in Kerala as the grandmother of Malayalam literature.