Jayakumari Devika is a Malayali historian, feminist, social critic and academician from Kerala.[2] She currently researches and teaches at the Centre for Development Studies, Thiruvananthapuram as a Professor.[3] She has authored several books and articles on gender relations in early Kerala society. She is bilingual and has translated both fiction and non-fiction books between Malayalam and English. She also writes on gender, politics, social reforms and development in Kerala on publications like Kafila, Economic and Political Weekly and The Wire. Devika did her Master of Arts in Modern History (1991) from Centre for Historical Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi and obtained her Ph.D. in History from Mahatma Gandhi University, Kottayam. Devika's early research was about the emergence of modern binary gender as a language of describing society and social change in the early twentieth century in Kerala. In her later writings, she has followed the gendering of development in Kerala through a history of public consent for contraception between the 1930s and 1970. She has also published translations of writings by first-generation feminists in Kerala in the book Her Self: Early Writings on Gender by Malayalee Women 1898-1938. In her later research, Devika explores contemporary political and social issues through a historical lens and her concerns are wider than gender, and rather, focus on intersectional power. Her later books have been about gender and politics in twentieth century Kerala, and about the gendered history of the Malayali literary public. Devika has translated number of books from Malayalam to English. Notable among them are the translation of Nalini Jameela's autobiography and the short stories of K. R. Meera and Sarah Joseph. She also translated the well acclaimed Malayalam novel, Arrachar by K. R. Meera into English as Hangwoman in 2014. In 2017, She translated the Malayalam novel, Enmakaje by Ambikasuthan Mangad into English as Swarga.She has published several essays in academic journals published from within and outside India, delivered several talks around the world and written extensively on contemporary issues in Malayalam and English. Devika also writes extensively in Malayalam, in contemporary publications.She has also written for children, and her work was published by the Kerala Shastra Sahitya ParishatShe also has a website about the first generation Malayalee feminists called Swantryavaadin
