Tamil author and Sahitya Akademi Award winner Melanmai Ponnusamy died on Monday in Chennai at the age of 66. He was undergoing treatment in the city’s Government General Hospital for nerve-related illnesses, The Times of India reported.

Ponnusamy was also a farmer and ran a grocery shop in his Melanmarainadu village in Tamil Nadu’s Virudhunagar district. His first short story was published in 1972 in the Communist Party of India (Marxist)’s literary magazine Semmalar. Eventually, his stories began to appear in several Tamil magazines, including Ananda Vikatan and Kalki.

“He made it clear that he was not going to compromise on what and how he was going to communicate, both in terms of style and content,” writer and theatre personality Mangai told The Hindu.

Ponnusamy won the Sahitya Akademi Award for his short story collection Minsara Poo in 2008. He had authored 22 short story collections, six novellas and a collection of essays. He wrote about the plight of the poor and the lives of rural people.