Dominic Chacko Kizhakemuri was born on 12^th January 1914, the eldest son of Munjanattu Eliyamma and Kizhakkemuri Tharavattil Chacko in Parathode, near Kanjirapally. In 1930, he cleared the Vernacular Secondary School Leaving Certificate Examination and began working as a teacher at the Middle School in Kanjirapally. Soon, he passed the TTC Examination too. Having served as a teacher for twelve years by then, the young Dominic Chacko was fondly referred to as “Kochu Saar” in Malayalam ( ‘‘Little sir’’), being the youngest member of the faculty. Swept along by the fervour of India’s struggle for independence from colonial rule, he joined the Indian National Congress. As was often the case, the youthful combination of a teacher and a freedom activist resulted in an admiration and appreciation of the great authors of the time. Consequentially, this became the impetus behind the establishment of the Sahridaya Granthasala, a library in Kanjirapally where Dominc Chacko functioned as a member of the managing committee. In 1943, he assumed the mantle of editor of the annual magazine published by the Granthshala. Two years later, he resigned from the post of a school teacher and  began farming. It was then that Ponkunnam Varkey, a friend, invited him as a partner in opening the National Book Stall in Kottayam.

Despite numerous hurdles and setbacks at the outset, the founding partners persevered through changes in the management team and the surrounding social turbulence as a result of the independence movement, eventually achieving a modicum of success. This was a period in time when the colonial administration was imprisoning political activists and literary stalwarts. Dominic Chacko was incarcerated as well. On his release, he set about reviving the then floundering NBS, raising funds through commercial moneylenders at a steep rate of interest. Nevertheless NBS published fifteen books that year and within a couple of years had turned profitable.

DC. Kizhakemuri was one of the founders of the Sahitya Pravartha Co-operative Society, a collective of writers and he became its general manager. In 1949, SPCS merged with NBS. For the first time in Kerala, a publishing house recruited people specifically to market its books. Sometime in 1950, the founders learnt that the Kerala State Government was inviting manuscripts to produce textbooks for supply to educational institutions functioning under the government’s education department. With the promise of a substantial purchase and  recurring profits accruing to the co-operative every year, DC (as he was popularly referred to) negotiated with the chief minister and education minister, requesting them to accept the SPCS textbook proposal in lieu of the land that the government had offered him for his role as a freedom fighter, pointing out how with the proceeds of the sale of the textbook would sustain the writers in the collective.Thus, the textbook featuring a story titled ‘Balachandran’ was accepted as part of the Forum II syllabus. Around 50,000 copies were sold for 8 annas each and SPCS thrived, becoming a profitable organisation that would subsequently go on to print hundreds of titles every year. A noteworthy milestone in the history of the SPCS then was the publication of ‘Mooladhanam’, a compendium of translations in three volumes of Karl Marx’s writing, authored by thirty eminent scholars including E.M.S. Namboothirippad, a doyen of the Communist movement in Kerala. DC Kizhakemuri’s pioneering vision gradually transformed SPCS into an eminently successful co-operative literary society between 1960 and 1975, at times publishing and marketing a book a day. This model was soon adopted in other parts of India and numerous similar co-operative ventures were formed in support of authors.