“WHETHER I shall turn out to be the hero of my own life, or whether that station will be held by anybody else, these pages must show.”
David Copperfield, Charles Dickens.

Thus begins the story of one of the most famous protagonists in literature. What is it that elevates a fictional character from a protagonist into a hero? Is a hero or a heroine someone who is merely the main character around whom the plot is woven? Should a character possess heroic qualities and demonstrate them before they can be elevated to the status of a hero?

The Author and The Hero is the story of fifteen year old Chinmay who feels choked by his dysfunctional family and longs for space and freedom as he is tired of playing the good boy and living by the rules set by his strict parents. Chinmay is devastated further when he finds that he is a character in a book, with his future life already plotted out on paper. But when Chinmay’s author Siddharth loses his grip on life, Chinmay is forced to an action which will finally turn him into the hero of his life.

Are you the hero of your life?
What does it mean to be the hero of your life?

David Copperfield wanted to know in 1850. Almost a hundred years later, Holden Caulfield asked a similar question through his actions in the world of phonies as he perceived it. In Madras in 1991, Chinmay Narayan asks the same question and finds his answer in The Author and The Hero.