Scheming kings; beautiful, but powerful and intelligent queens; a lost prince, surviving amidst spies and conspiracies are elements that George RR Martin might weave into his next Game of Thrones title. But in 1955, Kalki Krishnamurthy had already serialised  a novel along similar lines on the complex Chola Empire that became a seminal work of modern Tamil literature. Mani Ratnam’s cinematic adaptation, Ponniyin Selvan 1 (PS-1), that released on September 30, has generated an interest  in the epic among non-Tamil readers.

The readership boom

Pustaka Digital Media has been publishing Tamil audio books, including Kalki’s novel. They have now tied up with e-book and audio book subscription service, Storytel, for the English adaptation of the novel in audio form. “The story is a mixture of different genres. It has the ingredients of a good masala movie,” Dr Rajesh Devadas, director, Pustaka, explains, pointing to Mani Ratnam’s success. The movie, in turn, has spurred a ten-time increase in the purchase of the audio books, the publisher adds.