R. Chudamani (1931–2010) is a prolific and important twentieth-century Tamil writer, painter, who also wrote in English. She wrote over five hundred short stories, and several novellas, including Pinju Mukham (‘Tender Face’, 1959) and Iravuchchudar (‘Night Spark’, 1974), which was translated into English as Yamini (1996).
Ashapurna Debi was born in 1909. Her conservative family did not send her to school, but encouraged by her mother, she learnt to read and write on her own and published her first poem in the children
