KI Rajanarayanan

Ki. Rajanarayanan (1923–2021) documented the lives, speech, and folklore of Tamil Nadu's black-soil Karisal region with a distinctiveness of dialect and sensibility that earned him recognition as the father of Karisal literature. Born in Kovilpatti, he began publishing short stories in the late 1950s and went on to write and compile dozens of works of fiction and folklore. He received the Sahitya Akademi Award in 1991 for his novel Gopalapurathu Makkal and later served as honorary professor of folklore at the University of Pondicherry.