By Ottupulackal Velukkuty Vijayan commonly known as O. V. Vijayan, was an Indian author and cartoonist, who was an important figure in modern Malayalam language literature. Best known for his first novel Khasakkinte Itihasam (1969), Vijayan was the author of six novels, nine short-story collections, and nine collections of essays, memoirs and reflections. Khasakkinte Itihasam, Vijayan’s first novel, appeared in 1969 and took twelve years writing and rewriting to reach its final form. It set off a great literary revolution and cleaved the history of Malayalam fiction into pre-Khasak and post-Khasak eras. Khasakkinte Itihasam was inspired by Vijayan’s stay at a village called Thasarak near Palakkad for a year. His sister O.V. Usha was appointed as the teacher of a single-teacher school in the village. Most of the characters in the novel were modelled after real-life characters whom Vijayan encountered in Thasarak. In an afterword to the English translation of the novel Vijayan wrote. It had all begun this way: in 1956 my sister got a teaching assignment in the village of Thasarak. This was part of a State scheme to send barefoot graduates to man single-teacher schools in backward villages. Since it was hard for a girl to be on her own in a remote village, my parents had rented a little farmhouse and moved in with my sister. Meanwhile I had been sacked from the college where I taught. Jobless and at a loose end, I too joined them in Thasarak to drown my sorrows…. Destiny had been readying me for Khasak. Vijayan took twelve years to complete Khasakkinte Itihasam. The character Appukkili was originally created by Vijayan for his short story “Appukkili” which was published in 1958.
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