Manoj Kuroor

Manoj Kuroor is an award-winning poet and professor of Malayalam. He has written two kathakali librettos and songs for films including Shaji N. Karun's Vanaprastham. Manoj learnt thayambaka and kathakali melam from his father, Kuroor Cheriya Vasudevan Namboothiri, and from Aayamkudi Kuttappa Marar. He has been playing chenda for kathakali since 1989. J. Devika is a historian, feminist, critic and translator. She has written and published in Malayalam and English on gender, politics, literature, social reform and development in Kerala. She translated writings by first-generation feminists in Kerala in Her Self: Early Writings on Gender by Malayalee Women 1898-1938. She has also translated contemporary Malayalam writers K.R. Meera, Sarah Joseph, Ambikasuthan Mangad and Unni among others.