Arya Gopi
Biography
With over 30 years of dedicated experience as a bilingual writer, with more than 11 published books in both Malayalam and English, and as a classical dance practitioner, Dr. Arya Gopi hails from Kozhikode (a UNESCO City of Literature), Kerala. Her creative practice integrates traditional Mohiniyattam dance with contemporary literary expression, establishing dialogues between ancient gestural languages and modern poetic forms.
A regular contributor to major Malayalam journals, she has received over fifty literary recognitions, both national and international, including the prestigious Kerala State Sahitya Akademi Kanakasree Award, the highest state-sponsored literary award for young writers in Malayalam. A familiar presence at literary events across Kerala, she recites her poems at various programs organized by the Kendra and Kerala Sahitya Akademi – the supreme literary bodies under Government of India - as well as television channels. Her works appear in several multilingual anthologies.
Arya publishes and presents extensively on literary topics and has participated in numerous international literary conferences, including representing Kozhikode at Vilnius, Lithuania, as part of a UNESCO Literature Cities cultural exchange program.
Having mastered the complete mudra vocabulary of Mohiniyattam under renowned gurus, she has performed and published poetry extensively across India and internationally. Her performances of Mohiniyattam explore embodied classical knowledge and cultural heritage. Her work consistently focuses on preserving traditional art forms through innovative collaborations with contemporary media.
She is also a recipient of the Sharjah International Book Festival Translation Grant. Arya represented the Malayalam language at three international festivals of letters—Imphal (2019), Shimla (2022), and New Delhi (2024)—organized by the Sahitya Akademi, India’s premier government institution for promoting literature. Her poems have been translated into Hindi, English, Kannada, and Bengali.
Arya holds a Ph.D. in English Literature and currently serves as Assistant Professor and Head of the Department of English at The Zamorin’s Guruvayurappan College, University of Calicut, Kerala. She is also an Executive Committee Member of the Malayalam Mission, under the Ministry of Cultural Affairs, Government of Kerala.