“The interest extends to crime novels too.” Chew on this: the first crime novel in Tamil was written by a woman - M Kodhanayagi Ammal - when novels were just making their appearance. “Crime makes sensational headlines in newspapers and people eagerly read them,” he says. So, they like the subject.” Best-selling author ‘Pattukottai’ Prabhakar sounds less ominous. “With every conceivable plot, sub-plot and conspiracy and incidents like disrobing of Draupadi, Mahabharata is the first mega crime novel.” He may be ruffling a few feathers when he says: “Kannagi is the first arsonist as she burnt down Madurai in a fit of rage…Feelings of crime are part of people’s psyche. “The first woman to be kidnapped by a man was Sita,” he points out. And he stumps you with his list of the three oldest ‘crime novels’ - Ramayana, Mahabharata and Silapadhikaram. So, what lures the world and his wife to crime novels? “Crime lurks in the depth of every man’s heart,” Rajesh Kumar says. Today, leading Tamil writers count doctors, lawyers, policemen, students and women as their fans. Sri Iswarya Publications comes out with Indira Soundararajan’s supernatural thrillers.Ĭrime fiction is no longer “read quickly, guiltily, under desks, on buses and beaches and in stationery cupboards”. Vivek Publications is close on his heels with two monthlies - 43,000 copies each - written by Subha.

‘Crime King’ Rajesh Kumar is their leading writer. Little wonder that Asokan brings out two crime novels every month - 60,000 copies each. Remember the publishing cliché: Nothing sells like sex and crime. Estimates are that about 6 lakh copies make their way to the market eve r y month. Fiction factories like theirs, located in the city’s bylanes, are churning out hundreds of these potboilers - romance, sentimental tearjerkers and suspense stories - running between 100-150 pages and priced at Rs 10 to Rs 25. Vivek Publications, started by husband-wife duo S P Ramu and R Valli Meena at Ice House in 1987, prints 1.5 lakh copies a month. Output: 2.2 lakh copies a month and they sell like hotcakes through out India and Malaysia. Today, he runs an 8,000 sq ft publishing firm G A Publications at Triplicane.

The “SSLC fail” began as an office boy in a printing press in 1981.

Tamil pocket novels, of the crime genre, are here to stay.Īsk G Asokan, pioneer of pocket book publishing in Tamil. Let them stew in their own selfimportance. Literary writers brush them off as “cheap thrillers”. True, they are no longer the rage like in the 1980s.

They are ubiquitous - hogging roadside pavements, newsvendors’ stalls, bus terminals and railway stations.

Pattukottai prabhakar crime novels list