Author: Rao Bahaddur
Translator(s): P V Joshi
Publisher: Sahitya Akademi
Year: 2002
Language: English
Pages: 608
ISBN/UPC (if available): 8126011319
Description
An English translation of Kannada original 'Gramayana' (The Saga of a village) is the first full-length novel of a prolific writer, who waited 45 years of his life and 25 years of his literary career, to put it down in writing.
It is the story of the decay and disintegration of a typical village in the northwest corner of the Kannada country. Since its publication, the novel has evoked an amount of academic discussion which few other books can match. It has all the powers and weakness of a spontaneous growth in nature.
Gramayana is literally the story of a village and not of any individual. Individuals are there as there are trees in the woods. But the centre of the story is not any of them but the forest itself. The moving forces of the story are floods, famines and plagues, and above all, human mastered floods, famines and plagues, but not the follies of men and women.
If the lust and the cupidity of a few individuals, the stupidity and indifference of the many, and even the honest errors of judgment of a few other well-meaning persons, can lead to the disintegration of a village, the same factors operating over larger areas with bigger tools and greater concentration of power, can lead to ruin of the people. This is the message of Gramayana.
This translation has retained the colloquial excellence reflecting the idiom, the language and the culture of the North Karnataka Region.
TRANSLATOR:
P V JOSHI (Prahlada Venkatesha Joshi: 1915-1994) was well-versed in Sanskrit, Marathi and Hindi, besides English. He wrote critical evaluations in Kannada of 'Karnataka Kadambari', the complete works of V M Inamdar, Dr. Masti's poetry and short stories. He has rendered into English 'Geetha Taatparya' and 'Geetha Gambhirya' of his illustrious Professor Sriranga (Dr. Adya Rangacharya).