Vaikom Muhammed Basheer (1910-1994) is a well-known novelist and short story writer. The greatest contribution of Basheer to Malayalam literature is his unique prose style and a distinct language of genial satire.

Beypore Sultan (as he is called) spent his youth wandering all over India and the Middle East when he was not incarcerated by the British. Having begun his writing career during the final phase of Gandhi's struggles, he became a popular novelist after Independence in 1947. Though one would suspect great revolutionary spirit in his works, what he offered were simple pictures of the life in the poor, illiterate Muslim community of Kerala trying to adjust to the modernity, religious pluralism, and socialism. Though a tragic sense of life is prevalent in his early work, his characters learn to accept the tragic; they live in a spirit of profound love for their neighbors and fellow- beings, including animals and birds and all the creatures of the natural world.

He invests a philosophical dimension to the most mundane themes of life,narrating it in a raw naturalistic style. None of his works were overt commentaries about social and economic inequities, but Basheer captured the life of a whole underclass and helped them appropriate the culture which had been monopolized by one elite group for too long.

Important Works :
His thirty odd novels and short story collections include Prema Lekhanam (Love-Letter, 1943), Balyakala Sakhi (Childhood Playmate, 1944), Sabdangal (Voices, 1947), Pathummayude Aadu (Fathima's Goat, 1959), and Mantrikapoocha (Magic Cat, 1968).