The Big Book Of Odia Literature

With a literary history spanning centuries, the languages of Odisha have found myriad expression in prose, poetry, mythology, history, and politics. The Big Book of Odia Literature goes where very few have dared—into a history of language, literature and song that can be traced back all the way to the tenth century. In this careful curation, The Big Book curates essays, stories, poems, and plays that have defined the culture of a state and a people. A first of its kind, the volume is for lovers of linguistic history and literary traditions.

Explores the ways linguistic nationalism has enabled and deepened the reach of All-India nationalism. This title is also available as Open Access.

Fakir Mohan Senapati (1843-1918) is remembered largely for his emancipation of early Odia fictional narratives both collection of short stories and novels, as well as autobiography, poetry, essay, text books, dictionary, spiritual and journalistic writing and translations into Odia which enriched early modern Odia literary canon. Perhaps, Senapati's identity may be aptly remembered more than the literary the socio-political and socio-economic changes which challenges and urgency he lived upon and accepted and refabricated around the historical time line in British Odisha when many changes were in threshold. Senapati remains the early chronicler of the 'SOCIAL REALISM' narrative tradition in Indian Literature and his fictional narratives which is a sum total of four novels and twenty short stories are set within the local Odia traditions focuses upon the hundred and more years of the tumultuous history of Odisha, emerging of colonial modernity in early 19th century and its effects during British rule. Senapati is also conscious of foreign and native encounter which simultaneously built up Odia collective identity in the past. He examines and mentions of the chronology of shifting of the power structure such as the Afghan, Mughal, and Maratha invasions long before the arrival of British East India Company (1803) in Odisha. Fakir Mohan Senapati remains a critic of the 'HYBRID' modernities - the collision of Odia modernities and British modernities during the colonial rule which influenced each other for near about hundred and fifty years and addresses important political factor responsible for demanding first a language province and then, sovereign intellectual sub-national identity. Senapati's fictional narrative may be compared with the rare classics in world literature; for Senapati's collective voice forms new waves across national and subnational boundaries in British India which is anticolonial and brings forth local resistances towards the emerging of European orders during British rule chiefly on the basis of the demands of the emerging collective Odia identity of his time. ---------------------------------------------------- Collision of Modernities in British Odisha, Vol. I, 2017, General Editor: Sarat Kumar Jena. This book contains brief modernities debate by Satya P Mohanty. Special critical section on fictional narratives of Fakir Mohan Senapati is contributed by Jitendra N Patnaik, Shubhendu Mund, and Sarat Kumar Jena. Brief analytical work on Senapati's short stories are contributed by Udayanath Sahoo, and Sarat Kumar Jena. A short memoir section on life and work of Fakir Mohan Senapati is written by Monica Das.

Footprints of Fire is the most authoritative book of translation of contemporary poetry from the state of Odisha which is known for its rich and spectacular contributions in the fields of art, literature and culture of India. Dr Jayasingh, one of the most distinguished Indian poets and translators, has tried to showcase this as the key literary document of the contemporary Odia poetry 1950 - 2015. Dr Jayasingh has selected only 74 poets from many poets writing over the period to show how they with extraordinary thematic variations, innovative technical excellences, their authentic artistic skill and power have displayed immense potential to be placed among the outstanding poets of the country.

In this book, the author has focused on the typically Odia forms of such expression.

Basanti is a misfit in conservative, pre-independence rural Odisha. Not only does she read and write, all her choices—from marrying for love to dispensing medicines to the poor and running a girls’ school—are unconventional. Her emancipatory aspirations evoke strong reactions from her surroundings, even surprisingly from her husband, who is supposedly passionate about women’s freedom. In this collaborative novel, nine young authors narrate the journey of a liberated woman who questions the socially ordained roles of women and argues for change, especially through education. The authors, six men and three women, belonged to the ‘Sabuja Age’ in Odia literature, a short-lived, creative period of ten to fifteen years. Serialized in Utkala Sahitya between May 1924 and November 1926 and published as a book in 1931, with a revised version appearing in 1968, Basanti is the first fictional declaration of the independence of the Odia woman.