Legendary editor and poet N.V. Krishna Warrier was a literary genius and scholar with no parallels in the recent history of Malayalam language, historian M.G.S. Narayanan has said.
He was inaugurating a programme organised by the Chavara Cultural Centre here to commemorate Warrier on Tuesday.
Terming Warrier’s era, especially when he was the editor of the Mathrubhumi publications, as the golden era of Malayalam literature, Dr. Narayanan said that he was a scholar with exceptional capabilities to accurately assess the quality of literature in any genre besides being a creator of brilliant pieces of literature in different genres. “Malayalam is yet to witness a literary mastermind of his calibre after his death.” While being an outstanding writer, Warrier was also a scholar with an incredible acumen for research. “He may not have had strictly followed the scientific methodologies of research while presenting a thesis, but his research works always stood out for their refreshingly new and striking insights,” said Dr. Narayanan.
Stating that it was Warrier’s long-form-poems that first caught his attention while he was still a student, Dr. Narayanan said that his long poems with ‘novel and radical use of language’ brought about a ‘refreshing’ change to Malayalam poetry, which was treading a beaten track. “That was a revolution by itself,” he said.
Maintaining that the academia as well as the State authorities of his time failed to ‘make use of his talents and capabilities’ properly for the academic benefits of the State, Dr. Narayanan said that it was a great loss that he was not appointed as the Vice Chancellor of any universities during his time. Fr. George Punchayil of Chavara Cultural Centre presided over the function.
