India’s first literary tourism circuit coming up in Kerala soon

Museums and memorials for some of the most famous Malayalam writers, like Vaikom Muhammad Basheer and OV Vijayan are currently in different stages of construction in Kerala’s Malabar region, known for its rich cultural heritage. The new initiative by the Kerala Tourism department promises to be India’s first literary tourism circuit.

A literary tourism circuit for book lovers

The Malabar Literary Tourism Circuit, which is nearing completion, will help book lovers go down the memory lane in towns and villages where their favourite novels are set. The homes of many Malayalam literary giants are set to be part of the circuit.

The circuit will connect the state’s northern districts of Kozhikode, Malappuram and Palakkad in a new tourism network. Kozhikode, the birthplace of Basheer, was named City of Literature by UNESCO two years ago. It is also the venue of the Kerala Literature Festival (KLF), one of the major literary events in the country.

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The circuit includes museums dedicated to the memory of Malayalam literary icons like poet Thunchathu Ezhuthachan in Tirur, about 50 km from Kozhikode in Malappuram district, and legendary travelogue writer S K Pottekkatt and poet Akitham Achuthan Namboodiri’s in Kozhikode. A memorial of novelist M T Vasudevan Nair, who died in December last year, is also set to be part of the circuit along with several others.

Pottekkatt, Namboodiri and Nair are all winners of the prestigious Jnanpith award. Nair also dabbled as a director of Malayalam films, including the 1973 National Award-winning Nirmalyam based on his own short story, Pallivalum Kalchilambum (Sacred Swords and Anklets).

Basheer, Vijayan, Pottekkatt, Nair and other writers who lived in the Malabar region are all well known across the country through translations into other Indian languages and English. Many of these writers’ works are also available in translations into several foreign languages, making international travellers familiar with a Basheer or Vijayan story or character.

‘Basheer lives through young students…’

Basheer’s memorial in Beypore, which is home to the old port in Kozhikode, will be a community hall with a heavy emphasis on literature and his legacy. Most of the personal belongings of Basheer will be moved from his home to the new memorial. Known as Beypore Sultan, Basheer lived nearby on a two-acre land, filled with trees he planted himself, still visited daily by his fans.

“Basheer today lives through young students who visit our home regularly,” says Anees Basheer, the writer’s son who lives in the same house built by Basheer in the 1950s. “Most of the days he sat outside under a mangosteen tree and wrote,” he adds, referring to the tree that has become a signature memorabilia at the Basheer home, which witnessed the birth of such famous works as Ntuppuppakkoranendarnnu (My Grandfather Had an Elephant), Pathummayude Aadu (Pathumma’s Goat), Balyakalasakhi (Childhood Companion) and Mathilukal (Walls).

Inside his home are objects associated with Basheer, a gramophone record player in which he listened to Hindi, Bengali and Urdu songs on the vinyl while resting on an easy cloth chair, and even a drawing of him and his wife Fathima by M F Husain created in the same room during the famous artist’s visit in 1992, two years before Basheer’s death.

“Beypore is the capital of Malayalam Literature,” says Muhammed Aslam, a full-time primary school teacher and part-time tourist guide in Kozhikode. “All of Basheer’s writings are about the society and culture of Kerala,” adds Aslam. The Malabar Literary Tourism Circuit is a major tourism initiative driven by Kerala Tourism Minister P A Mohammed Riyas, who represents the Beypore constituency in the state assembly. The budget allocation for the new literary tourism circuit was first made by the Pinarayi Vijayan-led Left Front government in Kerala in 2021.

Vijayan’s life and works will be presented to visitors at his memorial in Thasarak village,10 km from Palakkad town, which was the setting for his magnum opus, Khasakinte Ithihasam (The Legends of Khasak) published in 1969. Run by the O. V. Vijayan Smaraka Samithi, the writer’s memorial in Thasarak where he came to live in 1956, has several political cartoons drawn by him along with manuscripts of his novels and short stories.

“The literary tourism circuit offers a different perspective of Kerala never showcased before,” says Kerala Tourism Director Sikha Surendran. “It is a perspective different from being the land of Ayurveda, Kathakali and the backwaters,” adds Surendran. “Malayalam is a classical language and its literature crafted the society’s culture and ethos in Kerala.”

Era of literary tourism

With the memorials of many famous writers, including Pottekkatt, whose works comprise of travelogues like Nile Diary, Soviet Diary and Bali Dweep, and Namboothiri, famous for the modernist poetry, Irupatham Noottandinte Ithihasam (Epic of the Twentieth Century) and Balidarshanam about the Asura king Mahabali, the new literary circuit in Kerala is expected to begin an era of literary tourism in the country known for a long literary tradition in several Indian languages.

Kozhikode is also home to Saraswati Samman-winning poet Balamani Amma, the mother of poet Kamala Das, poet P Valsala, playwright K T Muhammed and novelist Thikkodiyan, all major Malayalam literary figures whose works influenced a generation of Keralites. Several writers from Malabar were part of the freedom struggle with their works becoming a movement for democracy.

The literary tourism circuit initiative has also gained momentum from the new UNESCO City of Literature recognition for Kozhikode and the KLF, which drew an audience of more than half-a-million people to its seaside venue in Kozhikode in January this year with the participation of many writers from India and abroad like the Irish author and Booker Prize 2023 winner Paul Lynch and International Booker Prize 2024 winner and German author Jenny Erpenbeck.

One of the recent visitors to the Basheer home in Beypore was Grégor Trumel, the Counsellor for Culture, Science and Education at the Embassy of France in New Delhi. “The ‘Sultan of Beypore’ was an Indian writer in Malayalam, but he was a formidable universal, humanist writer, moved and touched by his human brothers,” says Trumel, a participant at the KLF 2025 edition where France was the Guest Country.

“This sensitive writer has lived many lives. He is a storyteller full of verve, very moving. His characters immediately become our friends. He has the wisdom and the sense of the marvellous. He was optimistic, I guess,” adds Trumel, who has read three of Basheer’s short stories in French translation.

As book lovers from both home and abroad embrace Kerala’s rich literary heritage, the state government, which has faced challenges in acquiring personal properties of some of the writers for building memorials and museums, is likely to open the new circuit by the middle of this year.