Sa Kandasamy (23 July 1940 – 31 July 2020) -Tamil novelist, short story writer, literary critic and documentary filmmaker, Sa Kandasamy wrote his first novel Saaya Vanam at the age of 25, naming it after a village that he had lived in as a child. Now in its twelfth edition, Saaya Vanam is one of the earliest examples of modern Indian literature focussing on environmental issues. Sa Kandasamy’s Visaaranai Commission, which dealt with custodial violence and the police, won the Sahitya Akademi Award for Tamil in 1998, one of several awards and fellowships received by him. Sahitya Akademi published a series of Tamil biographies introduced by him. He wrote extensively for the literary magazine Ka Sa Da Tha Pa Ra, which featured the work of artists, writers, scholars, and translators of all hues. His film Kaval Deivangal documenting the history and techniques relating to traditional terracotta art in South India won the first prize at the Angino Film Festival, in Cyprus, in 1989. ‘Sa Kandasamy believed in expressing profound ideas in simple words and was not trapped by labels,’ says A S Panneerselvan.