This anthology of fifty short stories reflects the major trends and fictional concerns of Telugu writers from Telangana covering a span of one hundred years. From the beginning, the story form here has shown its predilection to engage with social-political realities. The writers have employed the story form as an instrument of reform and an agent of social change. These writers have created a rich corpus over the years marked by excellence in substance and storytelling. The short fiction in Telangana has many similarities with other Resistance literatures in the world. The stories included in this collection deal with a wide spectrum of issues, class/caste/ gender inequalities, forms of exploitation, modes of resistance, middleclass mores, migration to the Gulf and other countries in search of livelihood, rural-urban divide, empowerment of women, dalits and minorities. The collection is a rich mosaic showcasing the art of story telling from Telangana region.
Mamidi Harikrishna, one of the prominent writers in contemporary Telugu literature, he hails from Shayampet village in Warangal district of Telangana State. He is a government employee by profession and a poet, painter, translator, film maker and film critic by predilection. He is influenced by the world literature as well as the world cinema. His style is deeply rooted in the local dialect and lifestyles. He introduced “Fusion Shayaree”, a novel style of poetry writing in Telugu literature which is a blend of “native roots of naturalism” and changing times of “cosmopolitan ultra modernism.” Presently he is the Director of the Department of Language and Culture, Government of Telangana State. Address: G-2, Challa Towers, Puppalaguda, Rajendra Nagar, Hyderabad. K. Damodar Rao, retired as Associate Professor from Department of English, Kakatiya University, Warangal. His first critical work was The Novels of Aye Kwei Armah (1993). His recent edited critical works include Postcolonial Indian English Fiction: Decentering the Nation (2016), Multiculturalism in Indian Tradition and Literature (2016), Bhakti Movement and Literature: Re-forming a Tradition (2016) and Mapping English: Recent Studies in Language and Literature: A Festschrift to Prof. T. Vinoda (2016). More than 200 of his translations of Telugu poems and 15 short stories appeared in literary journals. He compiled and translated Telugu poetry anthology Pride of Place: Selections from Telugu Poetry 1981-2000 in 2011. He compiled and edited two Telangana poetry anthologies, Scent of the Soil (2012) and Ode to Frontline Formations (2013). He has ten more edited and translated works to his credit. On the occasion of the Golden Jubilee of Sahitya Akademi’s bi-monthly, Indian Literature, he had won a prize for translation in a national contest. He writes short stories in English. Address: Flat B-308, Saiprakash Apts, Hanamakonda - 506001, Telangana.
With more than a hundred years of history, the Telugu short story has charted its soil-specific course closer to its roots to flourish into one of the most vibrant, fascinating and influential genres in Telugu literary harvest. From the beginning, the story form here has strengthened its role of a witness and a literary record; increasingly becoming an instrument of reform and an agent of social change. The story writers, in the process, have emerged as the conscience-keepers of the society.
William Faulkner asserted in his Nobel Prize acceptance speech in 1950 that a writer's duty is "to help man endure by lifting his heart." Telugu short story writers have been at it, lifting the heart and uplifting the society, since its origins. They donned roles of a teacher, historian, reformer, chronicler, visionary and a guide to action at different stages as the occasion demanded. Bandaru Achamamba, Gurajada Apparao, Madapati Hanumantha Rao, Chinta Deekshitulu, Veluri Sivarama Sastry, Suravaram Pratapa Reddy, Vattikota Alwar Swamy, Sripada Subrahmanya Sastry, Nori Narasimha Sastry, Chalam, Suramouli and Kaloji Narayana Rao are some of the finest practitioners of the short story medium in Telugu in the first generation who addressed various social issues of the times. They dealt with social, familial issues that they came across or familiar with, such as child marriages, bride-price, sufferings of widows, dowry system, social inequalities, suppression of women, feudal exploitative mechanisms and landlordism. In stories and novels published in 1920s and 1930s, Gudipati Venkata Chalam (popularly known as 'Chalam') dealt with themes of women's liberation and inequalities in the society. He castigated the artificial barriers, the shadow lines, built by a conservative society in a rigid framework of caste and community in his fictional works. Similarly, during the same period, Medari Bagaiah of Hyderabad (known as Ajnatavasi Bhagyareddy Verma), in 1920s, travelling across the country, focused his attention on the emancipation of dalits and other deprived sections, and depicted their misery in his short stories. Both these writers assumed the role of reformer-activists challenging the established, unjust systems.
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