Profile

Born in Koilandy, a village in Kozhikode (Calicut) in 1950; has ancestral links with Palestine and Yemen; parental (Qudsi) and maternal (Afeef) grand fathers.

He grew up in the port city of Calicut (Kozhikode), the city of both once Zamorian dynasty  (Samudiri Maharajas)  and the Persian-Arab Sea trading. After college life he migrated to Abu Dhabi in 1975 and worked with Abu Dhabi Investment Authority (ADIA), largest sovereign wealth fund in the Middle East for over 33 years. It was in Abu Dhabi that he continued his devotion in creativity as a Short story writer, later abandoned his ambition to become a literary translator. He has succeeded in that field. He introduced over 70 writers, both famous and budding, of various Arab countries, Iran and Indonesia by translating to his mother tongue of Malayalam.

He built vast contacts with many renowned Arab, Iranian writers, thinkers and scholars and still keeping the contact active. Also has links with some cultural institutions around the Middle-eastern and Northern African countries.

He is the Authorized Literary Translator of the following writers:

Sudan: Laila Aboulela; Egypt: Tawfiq Al Hakim,  Dr.Nawal El Saadawi, Salwa Bakr, Sahar Tawfik, Miral El Tahawy, Hala El Badry, Somaya Ramadan, Sahar El Mougy; Lebanon: Venus Khoury-Ghata, Hanan Al-Shaykh, Najwa Al Barakat, Emily Nasrallah, Hadia Sa'id; Iraq: Salima Saleh; Aliya Al Mamdouh; Mahmoud Saeed, Hassan Blasim, Maysaloon Hadi; Palestine: Liana Badr, Sahar Khalifeh, Mahmoud Shukair, Emily Habibi, Mahmoud al Rimawi, Mahmoud Ahmed Shaheen, Osama alesay, Abdullah al Tayeh, Tawfiq Fayyad, Isra Kalesh, Mays Daggas, Raji Bathish, Yusri al Ghoul, Ahlam Bsharat, May Kaloti & Laila Halabi; Syria: Zakaria Tamer, Ghada Al Samman, Nadia Ghazzi, Ghali a Qabbani, Osama Alomar, Shahla Ujayli Jordan: Leila Al-Athrash, Samiya At'ut'; UAE: Dr. Shihab Ghanem, Hareb Al Dhaheri, Nasssir Al Dhaheri, Dhabiya Khamis, Asma Al Katbi, Mariam Al Saedi;Bahrain: Mahdi Abdulla; Qatar: Dr. Ahmed Abdul Malik; Oman: Yehia Salem Al Mandhari, Azhaar Ahmed; Arab-American: Diana Abu-Jaber; Algeria: Yasmina Khadra; Tunisia: Inas Abbasi;  Saudi Arabia: Dr.Umaima Khamis; Mohammad Hassan Alwan; Kuwait: Muna Al Shafie, Bader Al Otaibi, Taleb Alrefai; Yemen: Wajdi Al-Ahdal; Libya: Najwa BenShatwan; Iran: Shahrnush Parsipur, Dr.Simin Daneswer, Sadegh Hedayat; Indonesia: Pramoedya Ananta Toer; UK:Julia Casterton; Italy: Giovanna Iorio