Sejarah wangsa Chola telah menjadi mengilhamkan banyak para pengarang Tamil untuk menghasilkan perekaan berkesusasteraan dan berseni sewaktu beberapa dekad akhirnya. Karya-karya kesusasteraan masyhur telah menolong menyambungkan kenangan Chola besar pada minda orang Tamil. Karya terpenting genrenya adalah masyhur Ponniyin Selvan (Anak lelaki Ponni), sebuah buku novel bersejarah dalam bahasa Tamil ditulis oleh Kalki Krishnamurthy. Dituliskan dalam lima volum, ini menceritakan kisah Rajaraja Chola. Ponniyin Selvan berurusan dengan peristiwa-peristiwa yang membawa ke kenaikan Uttama Chola pada takhta Chola. Kalki telah pandai menggunakan kekeliruan itu dalam perwarisan ke takhta Chola setelah kematian Sundara Chola. Buku ini telah dikeluarkan dalam majalah Kalki sewaktu pertengan 1950an. Permajalahan ini tahan selama hampir lima tahun dan setiap minggu penerbitannya telah dinanti-natikan dengan keminatan yang besar.

Kalki mungkin laid the foundations for this novel in his earlier historical romance Parthiban Kanavu, which deals with the fortunes of an imaginary Chola prince Vikraman who was supposed to have lived as a feudatory of the Pallava king Narasimhavarman I during the seventh century CE. The period of the story lies within the interregnum during which the Cholas were in eclipse before Vijayalaya Chola revived their fortune. Parthiban Kanavu was also serialised in the Kalki weekly during the early 1950s.

Sandilyan, another popular Tamil novelist, wrote Kadal Pura in the 1960s. It was serialised in the Tamil weekly Kumudam. Kadal Pura is set during the period when Kulothunga Chola I was in exile from the Vengi kingdom, after he was denied the throne that was rightfully his. Kadal Pura speculates the whereabouts of Kulothunga during this period. Sandilyan's earlier work Yavana Rani written in the early 1960s is based on the life of Karikala Chola. More recently, Balakumaran wrote the opus Udaiyar based on the event surrounding Rajaraja Chola's construction of the Brihadisvara Temple in Thanjavur.

There were stage productions based on the life of Rajaraja Chola during the 1950s and in 1973, Shivaji Ganesan acted in a screen adaptation of this play.