Collected Short Stories of Kuvempu

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About the Book Kuvempu (Kuppali Venkatappa Puttappa, 1904-1994) was one of the greatest Kannada writers of 20" century. He led a generation of Kannada people into the new era through his writings. He was a cultural icon. Though he was decorated with many national awards, his writings remain largely unknown to readers in other Indian languages. We wanted to introduce the brilliance of Kuvempu's works to readers of other Indian languages.

About the Author Prof Basavaj Naikar has translated the stories written by KUVEMPU in to English. Prof Naikar is the recipient of the life time achievement award for translators given by Kuvempu Bhasha Bharathi Pradhikara. It is appropriate that we are publishing his work of translation. We thank Ms.Tarini Chidanda Gowda, heir of KUVEMPU's works for permitting us to publish this work.

Preface I have been an admirer of Kuvempu's writings right from my undergraduate days because of his beautiful, musical and poetic style and sublime vision of life, on the whole. As compared to his two epic novels, Kanuru Heggaditi and Malegalalli Madumagalu, several famous poems, mythological plays and wonderful translations, his short fiction is relatively less known and discussed critically by the Kannada critics. I, therefore, thought of introducing them to the English speaking world so that they may be studied, compared and contrasted with those of other national writers like Premchand and international writers like Raja Rao. Mulk Raj Anand, Chekov, Maupassant, O'Henry, Henry James, Hemingway and others.

Introduction Kuvempu, nom de plume of Dr. K.V. Puttappa, (1904-1994) is a well known epic poet, novelist, short fiction writer, playwright, translator, lyric poet, a fine prose-writer, sensitive critic, educationist and a liberal thinker all rolled into one. He received many honorary D. Litt degrees from different Universities of Karnataka State. Likewise he was awarded the Padmabhüşana in 1958. He received the Central Sahitya Akademi Award in 1955 and the prestigious Jñanapîth Award for his revisionary epic entitled the Ramayana Darśanam in 1968. No study of any Kannada literary genre will be complete without a study of Kuvempu's works in that genre.

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