As a student at the MT Seminary school, Pushpanath wrote a short story “Thiramala” (Waves) for the school magazine, announcing his entry into the world of writing. He released his first novel named Chuvanna Manushyan in 1968 which was the first scientific thriller in Malayalam. Later on, he penned down more than 300 works including science fiction, horror fiction, fantasy, non-fiction and many short stories during the period of 1970s and 80s. Many of his works has been translated into different Indian languages such as Tamil, Kannada, Telugu, Hindi, Gujarati and Bengali. His novel “Souparnika” was serialized in Tamil. Kottayam Pushpanath has also translated Bram Stoker’s world renowned Gothic horror novel “Dracula” and Arthur Conan Doyle’s “The Hound of the Baskervilles” into Malayalam. Two of his novels – “Brahmarakshass and Chuvanna Anki”– were made into movies in Malayalam, Telugu and Hindi.

Pushpanath followed the tradition of Sherlock Holmes and Hercules Poirot in creating two fictional detectives, Detective Marxin and Pushparaj, the two names which became as popular as the name of the author itself. Detective Pushparaj would be the protagonist if the novels are set in India and Detective Marxin would take the lead role in novels set outside India. Some novels featured another fictional character, Detective Sudheer, as the lead.

Kottayam Pushpanath established his own publications in 1977, the Kottayam Pushpanath Publications, through which most of his works came out. All his books are being re-published by Rayan Pushpanath, his grandson through Kottayam Pushpanath Publications now. Many of Pushpanath’s books are published on mainstream digital platforms as e-books and audio books.