Karippu Manigal

Rajam Krishnan was a feminist Tamil writer from Tamil Nadu, India. Rajam Krishnan was born in Musiri, Tiruchirapalli district. She had very little formal education and appears to have been largely an autodidact. She started publishing in her twenties. She is known for writing well researched social novels on the lives of people usually not depicted in modern Tamil literature - poor farmers, salt pan workers, small-time criminals, jungle dacoits, under-trial prisoners and female labourers. She has written more than 80 books. 'Karippu Manigal' (Salty Pearls) depicted the lives of people working in the salt pans. When she wrote Karippu Manigal, she studied the ethnic community for two years by staying with them, and utilised the experience to write the novel.