Na. Parthasarathy was born in 1932 in a small village in Ramanathapuram district of southern Tamil Nadu. After a brilliant academic career leading to an MA in Tamil Literature from the University of Madras, his first job was as a teacher of Tamil in Sethupathy High School in Madurai. This was the same school where the celebrated poet Subramania Bharati had once taught. Parthasarathy, a prolific writer, then moved into the area of magazine editing. He was Assistant Editor at Kalki before taking up the reins of chief editorship of the respected Tamil monthly Deepam, and later of Dinamani Kadir of the Indian Express group of publications.