Perumal Murugan is the author of eleven novels, four collections of short stories and five anthologies of poetry in Tamil. Three of his novels translated into English—Poonachi: Or the Story of a Black Goat, Trial by Silence and A Lonely Harvest—were shortlisted for the JCB Prize for Literature in 2018 and 2019. The other six novels translated into English include Seasons of the Palm, shortlisted for the Kiriyama Prize in 2005, Pyre, Current Show and One Part Woman. His first non-fiction book Amma, a collection of essays about his mother, was published in December 2019. He is a professor of Tamil at the Government Arts College in Salem, India.