Poet and writer Vijay Nambisan, who became the first All India Poetry Champion in 1988, passed away on Thursday. He co-authored Gemini, a poetry book, with Jeet Thayil and Dom Moraes. He championed the ethical use of language and made an appeal to readers, writers and enthusiasts of literature in his book ‘Language as an Ethic’. He was 54 years old.

His poem ‘Madras Central’ garnered rave reviews from critics as well as the others, for which he went on to win the All India Poetry Competition organised by the Poetry Society of India in association with the British Council.

A graduate from IIT Madras, Chennai, Nambisan also translated the devotional poetry of famous poets — Poonthanam and Melpathur Narayana Bhattathiri. His wife Kavery Nambisan, a famous writer herself, wrote books like ‘The Scent of Pepper’, ‘The Truth (Almost) About Bharat’ and ‘The Story That Must Not Be Told’ which went on to be nominated for Man Asian Literary Prize 2008.