Mobin Mohan is a distinguished contemporary Malayalam writer, celebrated for his evocative storytelling and finely observed portrayals of human life. His narratives, marked by emotional restraint and lyrical precision, capture the quiet rhythms of everyday existence while engaging deeply with themes of love, memory, and social belonging. With a keen sensitivity to landscape and lived experience, his work resonates with readers for its honesty and human warmth.
Mohan’s acclaimed body of work includes the short-story collections Purambokku, Aakasham Petta Thumbikal, and Unneriyamma Paranja Kadhakal, as well as his celebrated novel Jacaranda, which won the Sahitya Akademi Yuva Puraskar (2021). He has also received major literary honours, including the Nalandha Award, Malayalam Aikyavedhi’s Kolumban Award, and the Book Café Akbar Kakkattil Novel Award, as well as several memorial recognitions. Beyond writing, he is an active cultural activist and a respected member of the Kerala Sahitya Akademi, contributing significantly to the state’s rich literary and cultural life.
In an exclusive interview with Nitish Raj; Editor-in-Chief, the award-winning author talks about his writing journey along with literature in regional languages and especially the Malayalam language.
Q.1: When did you first realize that storytelling would become central to your life, and what early influences shaped your literary voice?
MM: I was born in Kanchiyar, a migrant hill village in the Idukki district of Kerala. My grandparents migrated to this place, which was once a dense forest. Their generation fought against the mystery of the forest, the extreme cold, wild animals, and deadly diseases to make this area habitable for humans. This is the soil soaked in their tears, sweat, and blood. I grew up hearing these stories. The fuel of my stories is the many stories they left unwritten. There is still mist covering the village. You can feel the salty taste of their tears in it. How can I not write when stories are all around me…
Q.2: Your writing is marked by quiet intensity and emotional restraint. How do you decide what to reveal and what to leave unsaid?
MM: Telling everything openly is not the way of the story. If everything is told word by word, it will turn into the nature of an article. The story has some undisclosed aspects.
A good reader can find them. Reading is an emotional connection between the writer and the reader. Here, experiences are exchanged with each other. Look at everyday life, what layers of meaning there are in a blink of an eye or a soft hum. That is also present in the story. The beauty of a story is the words, feelings, and thoughts that are said without saying anything. The story is not about saying everything.
Q.3: You have worked in both short stories and novels. How does your approach to character and structure differ across these forms?
MM: Novels and stories are two different literary forms. The beauty of brevity should be in the story. That is also the beauty of language. The beauty that is close to poetry. But the novel gives us a larger canvas. There is a possibility of marking the characters more clearly in the novel. It is possible to elaborate plots and move from stories to sub-stories in the novel. The novel becomes a literary form that best marks life through conversations between characters and descriptions of the landscape. But stories have the beauty of being written in abridgement. Just as it is said that the roar of the great sea can be heard in a small conch shell, if you look carefully at the story, you can see the whole of life unfolding.
Q.4: Jacaranda earned you the Sahitya Akademi Yuva Puraskar 2021. What core questions—emotional or social—drove the novel?
MM: The theme of the novel Jacaranda is love and friendship. Therefore, the novel affects the reader more emotionally. But love is not discussed in the novel just simply. It also has a social dimension. The main character, Agastiano, says – what better way to truth than love? Love erases all kinds of boundaries. Religion, country, language, all boundaries are disappearing. When you fall in love, ultimately, there are only humans. When everyone falls in love, boundaries disappear, and this earth becomes a sphere of love.
Q.5: Many of your narratives locate intimate human lives within broader social realities. How consciously do you engage with politics, caste, or marginalised voices in your work?
MM: Literature, especially fiction, frees a person from his limitations. It takes the reader through the life experiences of many other people. Literature creates a sense of the other. Literature is a liberation from oneself. When writing about a person who is marginalized, the writer and the reader are able to stand close to their experiences.
Literature is what it does to a person to make them a person with the strength of experience. If the human race wants to move forward, we can only understand each other and take each other in trust. I believe literature should lead people forward. Literature liberates us from ideas that constrict and confine us. A good literary work creates hope and optimism. That is the politics of a writer.
Q.6: As a writer deeply rooted in Malayalam, how does the language shape your narrative rhythm, imagery, and worldview?
MM: For a writer, language is not just a tool to write. It is a means of expressing oneself. In every language, the geography, culture and lifestyle are marked. The way of life of a society shapes its language. Language provides images to a writer. Language shapes the rhythm and narrative style. As life and culture are different, so are the differences in language. Every language has its own pulse of life. Malayalam is my mother tongue. The cultural heritage of that language has shaped the language of writing. I know how to cry, laugh, get angry and dream only through this language. I, no, we live and breathe in our language. It is my language that has shaped me and my writing.
Q.7: Beyond writing, you are actively involved in Kerala’s literary and cultural institutions. How do these roles influence your creative freedom?
MM: For me, cultural activity is my lifeblood. I started my life as a cultural activist. For me, writing, reading and cultural activities should all lead the ideas of man forward. The goal of cultural activity is to make man capable of joining new dimensions of humanity and democracy. To eliminate the boundaries between people. To create a better society is what art and literature are all about. For me, writing and cultural activities are two sides of the same coin. I believe that such activities can contribute more to the cultural environment of the country. Kerala is a land with deep roots for cultural activities. This cultural movement is the basis of all the development that we see today.
Q.8: Looking ahead, what themes or forms are you eager to explore, and what advice would you offer to young writers in regional languages?
MM: It is very important to mark the lives of people who have not yet made it into literature. Our literature becomes broader when we add their experiences. There are so many lives that still need to be recorded, including the marginalized, tribal groups, and workers. I was born and raised in the plantation area. The story of the plantation workers here has rarely been featured in Malayalam literature. Writing about the lives of people who have not made it into history is a historical mission. My next goal is to write a novel like that.
There are great publishing opportunities today. Social media has completely changed our lives. New writers are making good use of these opportunities. Our writings should have the spice of life. Great literary works are created when they approach life honestly. This is not advice, it is my feeling.
