30 Malayalam language dramatists and playwrights

Thottathimyalil Mathew Abraham is an Indian theatre director and playwright. He is the former Vice Chairman of the Kerala Sangeetha Nadaka Academy. He is also the recipient of the Kerala Sangeetha Nadaka Academy awards for playwriting, Kerala Sahitya Academy Award for the play Peruthachan and the Government of Kerala award for best play direction.

Jagathy N. K. Achary (1924–1997) was a Malayalam dramatist and writer who also worked in Malayalam films. He was known for his plays and screenplays. He is the father of Malayalam film actor Jagathy Sreekumar.

Sasidharan Arattuvazhi was an Indian playwright and screenwriter. Within a career spanning more than two decades, he wrote 20 screenplays and 12 plays.

P. Balachandran is an Indian writer, playwright, scenarist, director, and actor. He's known for his work in Malayalam literature and Malayalam cinema.

Vaikom Muhammad Basheer, also known as Beypore Sultan, was an Indian independence activist and writer of Malayalam literature. He was a writer, humanist, freedom fighter, novelist and short story writer, noted for his path-breaking, down-to-earth style of writing that made him equally popular among literary critics as well as the common man. His notable works include Balyakalasakhi, Shabdangal, Pathummayude Aadu, Mathilukal, Ntuppuppakkoranendarnnu, Janmadinam and Anargha Nimisham and the translations of his works into other languages have earned him worldwide acclaim. The Government of India awarded him the fourth highest civilian honor of the Padma Shri in 1982. He was also a recipient of the Sahitya Academy Fellowship, Kerala Sahitya Academy Fellowship, and the Kerala State Film Award for Best Story.

Thoppil Bhasi was an Indian Malayalam-language playwright, screenwriter, and film director. He was associated with the communist movement in Kerala and his play Ningalenne Communistakki is considered to be a groundbreaking event in the history of Malayalam theatre.

Cherukad Govinda Pisharodi, commonly known as Cherukad, was a Malayalam-language playwright, novelist, poet and political activist, associated with the Communist movement in Kerala state, India.

Joy J. Kaimaparamban is an Indian novelist writing mainly in Malayalam. Born to a middle-class family of Kerala, India, Kaimaparamban became an English teacher and served in many schools in Kerala. He started his literary career at a young age and is still writing. He now lives in Vayalar, a small village in Alappuzha (Alleppey) district with his wife and two children. He has written several novels, some plays, and more than 100 short stories in his mother tongue, Malayalam. All of them were published through DC Books and SPCS, Kottayam. All India Radio has broadcast several of his short stories and dramas. He won an award in the name of Rabindranath Tagore, established by DC Books Kottayam in 1977, for his first novel Urayoorunna Pakalukal, and won the Kunkumam Prize in 1990, for his novel Theerabhoomikal. The Azure of Solicitude was his first novel in English, published by America print on demand publisher PublishAmerica September 2009. The Ayurvedic Healer is his second novel in English published by Copperhill Media Corporation. The Snake Charmer and the King Cobra is a collection of 30 short stories, published by Copperhill Media Corporation in 2013.

Joy Mathew is an Indian film and theatre actor, director, playwright, and screenwriter. He predominantly works in Malayalam cinema.

Nalapat Narayana Menon was a Malayalam language author from Kerala state, South India. His oeuvre consists of poems, plays and translations. His best known works include Paavangal, a translation of Victor Hugo's Les Misérables, and the elegy Kannuneerthulli.

K. T. Muhammed, popularly known as KT, was a Malayalam playwright and screenwriter. He had scripted about 40 stage plays, including Idhu Bhumiyanu, considered to be his masterpiece. He had also written screenplay for about 20 films, including Kandam Becha Kottu, Thurakkatha Vathil, Moodupadam, and Kadalpalam. KT was a recipient of Sangeet Natak Akademi Award.

Mullanezhi Neelakandan Namboothiri (1948–2011), popularly known as Mullanezhi, was a Malayalam poet, playwright, lyricist and actor from Thrissur in Kerala state of India. He was awarded the Kerala Sahitya Akademi Award twice: in 1995 for the drama Samathalam and in 2010 for the poetry collection Kavitha. He also received the Kerala State Film Award for Best Lyrics in 1981 for the film Njavalpazham. He has penned more than 70 songs for 25 movies and also acted in films like Uppu, Piravi, Kazhakam and Neelathamara.

C. N. Sreekantan Nair (1928–1976) was an Indian independence activist, a Malayalam writer, short story writer, playwright and screenwriter, best known for his Ramayana trilogy – Kanchana Sita, Saketham and Lankalakshmi. His oeuvre consists of 10 plays, 4 short story anthologies, book of non-fiction and collected works. Kerala Sahitya Akademi awarded him their annual award for drama in 1962. He was also a recipient of the M. P. Paul Prize.

Madath Thekkepaattu Vasudevan Nair, popularly known as MT, is an Indian author, screenplay writer and film director. He is a prolific and versatile writer in modern Malayalam literature, and is one of the masters of post-Independence Indian literature. He was born in Kudallur, a small village in the present day Anakkara panchayath in Pattambi Taluk, Palakkad district (Palghat), which was under the Malabar District in the Madras Presidency of the British Raj. He shot into fame at the age of 20 when, as a chemistry undergraduate, he won the prize for the best short story in Malayalam at World Short Story Competition conducted by The New York Herald Tribune. His debut novel Naalukettu, wrote at the age of 23, won the Kerala Sahitya Akademi Award in 1958. His other novels include Manju (Mist), Kaalam (Time), Asuravithu and Randamoozham. The deep emotional experiences of his early days have gone into the making of MT's novels. Most of his works are oriented towards the basic Malayalam family structure and culture and many of them were path-breaking in the history of Malayalam literature. His three seminal novels on life in the matriarchal family in Kerala are Naalukettu, Asuravithu, and Kaalam. Randamoozham, which retells the story of the Mahabharatha from the point of view of Bhimasena, is widely credited as his masterpiece.

Thikkurissy Sukumaran Nair was an Indian poet, playwright, script writer, lyricist, orator, film director and actor, though he is best known as an actor in Malayalam cinema. He is the recipient of Padma Shri from the Government of India, which is one of the highest civilian honours in India. In a career that spanned about 47 years, he acted in over 700 films. He is considered to be the "First Superstar in Malayalam cinema".

Vaikom Chandrasekharan Nair, popularly known as Vaikom, was an Indian writer and journalist who wrote primarily in Malayalam. He was born in Vaikom, a village in Kottayam district of Kerala.

Kavalam Narayana Panicker was an Indian dramatist, theatre director, and poet. He has written over 26 Malayalam plays, many adapted from classical Sanskrit drama and Shakespeare, notably Kalidasa's Vikramorvasiyam, Shakuntalam (1982), Bhasa's Madhyamavyayogam (1979), Karnabharam ,Uru Bhangam (1988), Swapnavasavadattam, and Dootavakyam (1996). He was the founder – director of theatre troupe, Sopanam, which led to the foundation of Bhashabharati: Centre for Performing Arts, Training and Research, in Trivandrum.

Cannankara Velayudhan Raman Pillai, also known as C. V., was one of the major Indian novelists and playwrights and a pioneering playwright and novelist of Malayalam literature. He was known for his historical novels such as Marthandavarma, Dharmaraja and Ramaraja Bahadur; the last mentioned considered by many as one of the greatest novels written in Malayalam.

Gopala Pillai Sankara Pillai, better known as G. Sankara Pillai, was an Indian playwright, literary critic, and director, known to be one of the pioneers of modern Malayalam theatre. A proponent of total theater, he was the founder of Nataka Kalari movement in Kerala and the chairman of the Kerala Sangeeta Nataka Akademi. He was a recipient of a number of awards including the Kerala Sahitya Akademi Award for Drama in 1964 for the work Rail Palangal and the Sangeet Natak Akademi Award for the best playwright in 1979.

N. Krishna Pillai was an Indian dramatist, literary critic, translator and historian of Malayalam language. Known for his realism and dramatic portrayal of psycho-social tensions, Pillai's plays earned him the moniker, Kerala Ibsen. He was a recipient of the Sahitya Akademi Award, Kerala Sahitya Akademi Award for Drama, Odakkuzhal Award, Vayalar Award and Kerala Sangeetha Nataka Akademi Award, besides other honours. The Kerala Sahitya Akademi inducted him as a distinguished fellow in 1979.

Narayana Pillai Narayana Pillai alias N. N. Pillai (1918–1995) was an Indian playwright, actor, theatre director, and orator. Dedicated to the cause of drama, Pillai has written over 30 Malayalam plays, 40 one-act plays, two theoretical studies on theater and an autobiography.

N. N. Pisharody was a director in the Malayalam Film industry. He was born into a feudal family, known as "Kallil" in Methala, near Perumbavoor in Kerala.

Raghava Kurup Narendra Prasad was an Indian actor, playwright, director, teacher and literary critic. He was born at Mavelikkara in the erstwhile Kingdom of Travancore.

K. Sachidanandan (1948) is a noted Indian poet and critic, writing in Malayalam and English. A pioneer of modern poetry in Malayalam, a bilingual literary critic, playwright, editor, columnist and translator, he is the former Editor of Indian Literature journal and the former Secretary of Sahitya Akademi. He is also social advocate for secular anti-caste views, supporting causes like environment, human rights and free software and is a well known speaker on issues concerning contemporary Indian literature. He is the festival director of Kerala Literature Festival.

Ahwan Sebastian was a playwright, director, music director and actor in Malayalam. Within a career of more than five decades, he has directed six stage plays, and has given music to more than twenty plays and two films. He has also scripted and directed a film Kalopasana (1981). He is best known as the writer and director of the stage play Devasutram which ran in Kerala theatres for many years. Other notable scripts include Upasana, Brahmasuran, Chooshakamanthram and Anaswaramanthram. His last play, Kabandhangal, was released in 1984. He established his own professional drama group called "Musical Theatres" in 1958. He died on 2 March 2011 in Kozhikode at the age of 77.

Perumbadavam Sreedharan is a prolific Malayalam author from Kerala, India. He is former Chairman of Kerala Sahithya Academy. He has written several novels and short stories. One of his most famous and critically acclaimed novels is Oru Sankeerthanam Pole (1993) for which he won the Vayalar Award in 1996. He got Kerala Sahithya Academy Award for his novel 'Ashtapadi'. In 2006, he was awarded the Malayattoor Award for his novel, Narayanam.

Puthiyara Maliyakkal Taj, popularly known as P. M. Taj, was an Indian creative writer, actor, screenwriter, and director in Malayalam theatre. He was a prominent cultural figure in Kozhikode. Taj wrote many plays during his short span of life and won several awards including the Sakthi Award, instituted in memory of the progressive Malayalam writer Cherukad, and the Kerala Sangeetha Nataka Akademi Award twice.

C. J. Thomas (1918-1960), popularly known as C. J., was an Indian playwright and literary critic of Malayalam literature. He was best known for his plays, Aa Manushyan Nee Thanne, Avan Venndum Varunnu and 1128-il Crime 27 which introduced modernity into Malayalam theatre. He was also a leader of the Vimochana Samaram, an anti-communist uprising against the First E. M. S. Namboodiripad ministry in Kerala.

M. Subramanian Namboodiri, commonly known by his pen name Thuppettan, was a Malayalam-language playwright from Kerala, India. Hailing from Panjal, a village in Thrissur district of Kerala, Thuppettan had been a drawing teacher at a local school. His father Ittiravi Namboodiri was a Vedic scholar who tried to reform the conservative practices of the Namboodiri community.

Unnayi Warrier was a poet, writer, scholar, dramatist who lived in Kerala, India during the later part of the 18th century. He is best known for his chef-d'oeuvre Nalacharitham aattakatha and is known to have made significant contributions to the art of Kathakali, the classical dance-drama form of Kerala.