A collective of readers and book lovers in Kozhikode, the country’s maiden ‘City of Literature’, is celebrating its golden jubilee this year by recording Kerala’s cultural history in the past 50 years.
N.M. Sunny, secretary of the Calicut Book Club, traces the beginning of the group to informal interactions that used to take place at Hotel Maharani. “Pala K.M. Mathew, former MP and journalist, was the general manager of the Manarcaud Pappan-owned hotel then. He used to have a good rapport with writers and intellectuals of the time. The seeds of the club were sown in his room, according to old timers,” he says. Though Kozhikode then had a number of good libraries and publications, platforms to discuss books were rare.
