9Ponniyin Selvan (English: The Son of Ponni) is a 2400-page 20th-century Tamil historical novel written by Kalki Krishnamurthy. Written in five volumes, this narrates the story of Arulmozhivarman (later crowned as Rajaraja Chola I), one of the kings of the Chola Dynasty during the 10th and 11th centuries. Kalki finished the novel after nearly three and a half years of writing and he visited Sri Lanka three times to gather information for the novel. Ponniyin Selvan is a historical novel that centers on a number of real historical characters and incidents.