The rich language of God's own country
Malayalam is the language spoken by the inhabitants of Kerala, a small state situated at the southern most part of India. Kerala, which is considered to be God's own country, is also a state with 99% literacy and the first state in India to have achieved this feat.
Malayalam, the language, which has been enriched through the ages, by various intelligent art forms and its authors, owes its origin to the rich cultural and traditional heritage of this part of the country.

Genesis
The language Malayalam, which belongs to the Dravidian group of languages, evolved from Tamil or Kodumthamizh, to make it more precise.
Malayalam remained in the shadows of Tamil till 10th Century. But this freedom did not result in creating an indigenous tongue but metamorphosed into a highly sanskritised one due to the efforts of the powerful Namboodiris -the feudal aristocrats. The Manipravalam style, a hybridization of Malayalam and Sanskrit was a result of this predominant influence. Leelathilakam, a seminal text of the Manipravalam style defined its poetics.
Later an indigenous, third kind of Malayalam evolved untainted by the weight of Sanskrit and Tamil - the pure or pacha Malayalam. This outlived its earlier versions. This pacha Malayalam saw its origin in native idioms, ballads, and folksongs like Vadakkan Pattukal and wedding songs. Christian and Muslim elements too were threaded into this.

Growth
Ramacharitham written in 1300 AD is considered the oldest text in Malayalam. The Kannassa Panickers who lived between 14th and 15th Century planted the seed for a new poetics in Malayalam. Their works had their roots in the myths and legends of Kerala and their writing style defied the Manipravalam poetics.
Writings in the Manipravalam style continued till Cherusseri Namboodiri turned his attention to pure Malayalam and wrote Krishna Gatha in the early of 15th Century.
Thus Cherusseri and Kannnasa Panickers heralded the new Malayalam. Together they scripted the transition from Manipravalam style to that of the Pacha Malayalam what we ultimately seen in Kunchan Nambiar's Thullal poems.
This was followed by a multitude of Sanskrit compositions till 17th Century.

Ezhuthachchan - The Father of Malayalam Language
In 17th Century the first Mahakavi (grand poet) of Malayalam, Thunchathu Ramanujan Ezhuthachchan adopted the Sanskrit alphabet in place of the incomplete Malayalam one.
Ezhuthachchan sowed the seeds of modernism and earned the name of being 'The Father of Malayalam Language'. Adyathma Ramayanam by Ezhuthachchan is one of the most outstanding works in modern Malayalam poetry.
Meanwhile Kerala witnessed the birth of Kathakali, a dance-literature genre that it soon came to pride in. Unnayi Warrier was the chief exponent of this genre. In 18th Century a new genre evolved - Kunchan Nambiar's Thullal - which was born in defiance of the ponderous literary idioms of Kathakali. Both Kathakali literature and Thullal songs played a major role in shaping the Malayalam language.

Early Fiction
Other genres too bloomed in the rich fertile soil of the Malayalam language. The first novel in Malayalam was T M Appu Nedungadi's Kundalata (1887) though Chanthu Menon's Indulekha (1889) was more popular.
C V Raman Pillai's Marthanda Varma was another well-known work of the time. While original works were being written in every literary genre, translations were also prolific. Valiya Koyil Thampuran's Shakuntala (1881), Kunjikuttan Thampuran's Hamlet, Vallathol Narayana Menon's Ramayana(1878) were a few of notable translations.
To A. R Raja Raja Varma goes the credit of creating a grammar for the language with his Kerala Paniniyam.
From the early age onwards a number of authors have contributed to the development of the language, which in turn has made it rich with literature. The early modern Malayalam literary scene was dominated by writers like the Vaikom Muhammed Basheer, Thakazhi Sivasankara Pillai and Ponkunnam Varkey who gave a regional, realistic flavour to their creations. Soon after them came a profusion of writers like M T Vasudevan Nair, Uroob, Lalithambika Antharjanam, O V Vijayan, Kakkanadan, M Mukundan, Sethu, Punathil Kunjabdulla, Anand, Ayyappa Panicker and O N V Kuruppu. Present writers like Balachandran Chullikkad, Sachidanandan, Attoor Ravi Varma, Kadammanitta and Vinayachandran belong to the post-modernist ilk.
Malayalam has contributed much to the English writing scenario- the Malayali ethos or sensibility has contributed in large measure to many noteworthy works in English. Both expatriates and Indians, figure among the Malayali writers in English. Meena Alexander, Kamala Das, Shreekumar Verma, Susie Tharu, Anita Nair, Jaishree Mishra, Arundati Roy, Shashi Warrier, Susan Vishwanathan, Shashi Tharoor are some of them. Their works sketch the Malayali experience across the globe.
In the Malayali consciousness the need to break from the canonical and orthodox is very pronounced and this reflects in the language and literature. A truly remarkable feature of Malayalam is that is one of the most assimilative of languages. The Malayali's thirst for literature extends his reading to that of translations of great works and as a result the most number of translations into an Indian language are probably in Malayalam.