Rayala Shri Krishna Raja Narayana Perumal Ramanujam Naicker (16 September 1923 – 17 May 2021[1][2]), shortened to Ki.

He was a recipient of the Sahitya Akademi Award in 1991.The Times of India called him the "Guardian of Tamil oral tradition".

[3] Rajanarayanan was born on 16 September 1923 in the village of Idaiseval near Kovilpatti in present-day Thoothukudi district, Tamil Nadu.

[2][4] He went on to become a member of the Communist Party of India (CPI), going to prison twice for his participation and support in the CPI-organised peasant rebellions between 1947 and 1951.

[2] Rajanarayanan began his literary career at the age of 30 and wrote under his Tamil initials Ki.

The stories are usually centered around Karisal country's people, their lives, beliefs, struggles and folklore.

[10] The novel deals with the stories of multiple people living in a village in south India before the arrival of the British.

It involves the migration of the Telugu people escaping brutal kingdoms north of Tamil Nadu.

spent decades collecting folktales from the karisal kaadu and publishing them in popular magazines.

In 2007, the Thanjavur-based publishing house Annam compiled these folktales into a 944-page book, the Nattuppura Kadhai Kalanjiyam (transl.

was also well known for his candid treatment of sexual topics,[11][12] and use of the spoken dialect of Tamil for his stories, rather than its formal written form.

[10] On 16 September 1954, Rajanarayanan married Kanavathi Ammal (classmate of his younger sister Ethirajam ; also a cousin) .