Writers are never defined by the number of books they produce, but the quality of the things they write. As a writer, P Singaram wrote only two books in his lifetime, but it must have been the mark of quality they carried in them that made him a remarkable, memorable writer to have left an influential imprint in Tamil literature.
Born on 12 August 1920 in a village called Singampunari, in Sivagangai district in Tamil Nadu, Singaram spent a number of years of his life living in Indonesia. After completing his secondary education in Madurai, at the age of 18, Singaram moved to Medan, Indonesia. Having very limited access to Tamil literature there, he found his inspiration in works of popular writers like Hemingway, Tolstoy, Chekhov, and more.
He returned to India after 1946, and in 1950 wrote his first novel, Kadalukkuappaal. However, after facing several rejections, it was only in 1959 that he was able to publish it. Similarly, his second novel, Puyalile Oru Thoni could only be published in 1972, ten years after Singaram had written it. The two novels which record the experiences of immigrants, nonetheless are held as important literary fiction in Tamil. And Kadalukkuappaal is considered the first diaspora novel in Tamil. But perhaps the difficulties he faced in the publication of his works became the reason why he lost the desire to produce more books.
After returning to India in the aftermath of World War II, P. Singaram worked with a newspaper until his retirement in 1987. He had lost his wife and first child during her pregnancy when he was 25 years old and spent his time living alone after coming back to India. In 1997, he gave away his earnings in charity. And with his health slowly deteriorating throughout that year, the writer lost his life on December 20, 1997.
