Poet Puviyarasu, who twice received the Sahitya Akademi Award and helped establish the Vanampadi movement that influenced contemporary Tamil poetry, died on Tuesday, June 30, 2026.
He earned the Sahitya Akademi Award for Translation in 2006 for rendering the poems of Kazi Nazrul Islam into Tamil under the title Puratchikaran. In 2009 he received the award again for his poetry volume Kaiyoppam.
DMK president M.K. Stalin and CPI(M) state secretary P. Shanmugam expressed condolences, noting his major role in Tamil literature. Tamil Nadu Chief Minister C. Joseph Vijay also mourned the loss and stated that the state government would provide official honours at the funeral.
