Naalukettu (novel)

Naalukettu is a Malayalam novel written by M. T. Vasudevan Nair. Published in 1958, it was MT's first major novel. The title attributes to Nālukettu, a traditional ancestral home (Taravad) of a Nair joint family. Like many other novels written by MT, Naalukettu is also set against the backdrop of the declining traditional joint family structure of Kerala in a newly independent India.

Naalukettu remains a classic in Malayalam fiction. It contributed to the renewal of a literary tradition initiated by S. K. Pottekkatt, Thakazhi Sivasankara Pillai, and Uroob in the 1950s. It was given the Kerala Sahitya Akademi Award in 1959. It has had 23 reprints (as of 2008), was translated into 14 languages, had a record sale of half a million copies (as of 2008), and still features in the best-seller lists.

Doordarshan adapted the novel into a television film in 1995 with Malayalam actor, Krishnaprasad, as the protagonist. It won the Kerala State Television Award for the year 1996. A screenplay based on the novel was released on 8 December 2012 as part of the DC International Book Festival, Thiruvananthapuram.