C.S. Chellappa (19121998) was a versatile literary personality of his time. His was a varied and wide contribution to different branches of literature, including the novel, short story, poetry, literary criticism and translation, spread over a period of more than five decades.Chellappa’s singular achievement was Ezhuthu, a literary magazine that he founded in 1959. In the ten years of its existence, Ezhuthu emerged as a seminal force in Tamil literature and has continued to influence literary initiatives in Tamil for the last half a century. With practically no funding from external sources, Chellappa managed to bring out the magazine for over a decade despite severe economic hardships, marking a rare, selfless commitment to the cause of modernizing Tamil literature. The author was posthumously awarded by the Sahitya Akademi in 2001.Perumal Murugan, principal of Anna College in Namakkal, Tamil Nadu, is the author of twelve novels, five collections of short stories, poems and a memoir