The short story format originated in Europe. The Tamil world believes that tales in Tamil date back to the 17th century to ‘Paramartha Kurunkathai’, a transition from classical Tamil poetry. VVS Iyer started a new trend in the 1880s by giving stories their deep form.

Pudumaipithan started the next stage of Tamil storytelling and many other writers came up with brilliant Tamil stories. Pudumaipithan, Ku.Pa. Ra and PSRamaiya and their contemporaries have written many stories which is today a popular format with Tamil literary circles and readers as a short story format.

Pudumaipithan

Pudumaipithan’s stories carried messages for society. He sincerely expressed concern for society and described the misery and drama in our lives. He wrote about human relationships, their aspirations, and life in general closely examined. His ‘Ponnagaram’ was considered beyond the reach of readers. He dealt with a wide range of topics in his stories while also experimenting with the art of storytelling. His writing included sarcasm and wit, and the stories seemed natural and realistic. Examples like ‘Kodukkapuli Maram’ and ‘Naasakkaara Gumbal’ highlight the earlier qualities of his writing. He has ably used the Madras or Tirunelveli dialects in his stories as appropriate. His writings reflected the influence of foreign writers such as Maupassant, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and others in the Western world. He has written more than 150 short stories in Tamil.

T. Janakiraman

The stories of T. Janakiraman brought the quirks into people’s lives in a wonderful way and people were able to identify them with the characters.

Jayakanthan

Jayakanthan had written many outstanding stories, some of which were filmed later. Most of his stories were published by Ananda Vikatan. While working in the ‘Janasakthi’ office, he developed a taste for Tamil literature and writing in Tamil. Their stories were mainly about people from the slums or extremely poor people.

N. Pichamoorthy

N. Pichamoorthy is a well-known Tamil story writer. ‘Mannasai’ is one of his folk tales.

Sujatha

Sujatha is the pseudonym for S. Rangarajan, who has written more than 100 Tamil novels and 250 Tamil short stories. His writing style earned him a wide audience. His science fiction is said to be pioneering work in Tamil. He could unravel science with his own inimitable simple words that everyone can understand. ‘Aathma’ is a short story that is an exciting narrative of a day in the life of a computer engineer. Suri had made the computer the ability to predict the future by giving it a set of rules that can observe planetary positions. To test its effectiveness, it gives the details of its birth and the computer instantly displays the output on the screen. That turns out to be his death sentence, in a way. He was going to die that same night at exactly 11:11:59 p.m. So healthy and full of life, he couldn’t believe it and makes random checks in a hurry. The story ends with the arrival of the inevitable moment. Sujatha’s stories were published in popular Tamil magazines such as Kumudam, Ananda Vikatan, and Kalki.