In 1964, the Sahitya Akademi, India's National Academy of Letters, decided to publish the first in a series of monographs on writers who had made significant contributions to the development of literature in an Indian language.

They were intended primarily for the general reader who had not necessarily read the work of the writer concerned, and might not be burdened with references and allusions more likely to deter than hold the attention of the target audience.

The story of the life and work of the writer concerned was to be told simply and lucidly and in such a manner as to convince the reader of the historic significance of their contribution to Indian literature.

Of the 651 monographs published up to 2003, 274 were originally written in English; 96 in Hindi; 51 in Urdu; 41 in Tamil; 28 each in Kashmiri and Maithili; 27 in Kannada; 15 each in Bengali and Rajasthani; 14 each in Marathi and Telugu; 10 in Gujarati; seven in Odia; six each in Malayalam and Sindhi; five in Nepali; four each in Assamese and Dogri; two each in Konkani, Punjabi and Sanskrit.

[1] The authors included in the series cover a wide range: Assamese Bengali English Gujarati Hindi Kannada Kashmiri Malayalam Marathi Odia Punjabi Rajasthani Sanskrit Tamil Telugu Urdu