KOZHIKODE: Eminent Malayalam poet and environmental campaigner Sugathakumari has been selected for the Mathrubhumi literary award.
The award, a prestigious literary prize in Malayalam, was announced here today by Mathrubhumi Managing Director M P Veerendrakumar and Managing Editor P V Chandran.
The award carries a purse of Rs two lakh, citation and memento.
Sugathakumari was chosen for the honour by a judging committee, comprising writers Vishnu Narayanan Namboodiri, Sachithanandan and M Leelavathi.
Daughter of freedom fighter Bodheswaran and Karthiyayaniamma, many of Sugathakumari's poems reflect deep concern and anguish over the decline of values in modern life and the harm caused by human greed on nature.
Her much acclaimed and widely read collections include "Rathrimazha", "Amabalamani" and "Krishnakavithakal."
Sugathakumari was in the forefront of the campaign for protection of the Silent Valley in the 1980s against the state government's move to set up a mega hydro-electric project in the green forest regardless of its adverse environmental consequences.