1953-12-18

Charu Nivedita (born 18 December 1953) is a postmodern, transgressive Tamil writer, based in Chennai, India. There is an invisible ban on his writings in the Tamil milieu, whereas he is widely translated into Malayalam in nearby Kerala. Since his writings are transgressive in nature, he is branded as a pornographic writer and disliked by many. For a longtime he was writing clandestinely under the pseudonym ‘Muniyandi’. He was born and raised in a slum until the age of eighteen, worked in the government services and survived as a wanderer. His novel Zero Degree was longlisted for the 2013 edition of Jan Michalski Prize for Literature. Zero Degree was inducted into the prestigious '50 Writers, 50 Books - The Best of Indian Fiction', published by HarperCollins. Vahni Capildeo places Charu Nivedita on par with Vladimir Nabokov, James Joyce and Jean Genet, in her article in the Caribbean Review of Books.[4] He was selected as one among 'Top Ten Indians of the Decade 2001 - 2010' by The Economic Times. He is inspired by Marquis de Sade and Andal. His columns appear in magazines such as Art Review Asia, The Asian Age and Deccan Chronicle.