GOPINATH MOHANTY (1914-1991), one of the chief architects of modern Indian literature, was the first recipient of the Kendriya Sahitya Akademi Award (1955) and other prestigious honours, including the Soviet Land Nehru Award (1970), Jnanpith Award (1973) and Padma Bhushan (1981). He wrote twenty-four
novels, ten collections of short stories, three plays, two biographies, two volumes of critical essays and two works of translation.
Oblivion and Other Stories is an anthology of twenty short stories by Gopinath Mohanty, the doyen of Oriya (now Odia) literature. The stories, written across a half-century (1935-1988), sample his oeuvre of writings and the variety of his themes-from 'Dã' (mid-1930s) to 'Oblivion' (1951) to 'The Upper Crust' (1967) to 'Lustre' (1971) and 'Festival Day' (1985).
They capture the forgotten others, the banality of marginal living on life's edge-of the poor, the tribals and ordinary people-invisible in the feudal landscape of Orissa in the twentieth century.
Originally written in Oriya by the Padma Bhushan awardee, these have now been translated for the first time into English and recreate the social life of mid-twentieth century India.
The embellished past in the stories is not one of nostalgia but a full-toned portrait of society. Marginalization is the running thread: dispossession, disenfranchisement, class/caste social exclusivity and lack of education.
