Selected short stories works of Vaidēhi, Kannada author; translations into English.

Six unforgettable stories of love and bravery, treachery and injustice, from ancient Indian literature Classical Sanskrit and Tamil writing teem with a myriad characters, and here we meet some truly memorable ones. This collection of six plays, poems and epics retold for children includes ‘Shakuntala’, a heartrending story of the love between the beautiful Shakuntala and King Dushyanta; ‘The Little Clay Cart’, where the evil designs of the king and his family are foiled by the righteous Charudatta and Vasantasena; ‘The Story of an Anklet’, about Kannagi, who wreaks a terrible revenge for the wrong done to her; ‘Manimekalai’, the extraordinary account of a woman’s search for her true calling; ‘The Last Trial of Sita’, in which the playwright gives a whole new ending to the Ramayana, and ‘The Broken Thigh’, about the final, desperate combat between Duryodhana and Bheema on the battlefield of Kurukshetra. Accompanied by descriptions of the authors’ lives and the time when the stories were written, these lively retellings are an ideal introduction to some of the best-known stories from the Indian classics.

Vaidehi Kathana is the first full-length literary critical study of the fictional, non fictional and poetic narratives of Vaidehi, who is considered to be one of the most celebrated contemporary Indian writers in Kannada. This work reviews, introduces, discusses and interprets all the writings of Vaidehi, which include short stories, poems, essays and a novel. The book examines how this great Indian writer has been reacting and responding to her time and space for the last four decades. The book shows how Vaidehi’s poetics has so subtly blended with her politics thereby creating some of the outstanding masterpieces in poetry and fiction of our times. The book discusses the special features of Vaidehi’s feminist perspectives as well as the uniqueness of her narrative skills. Arguing that Vaidehi’s spiritual triumph is demonstrated in her technical triumph, the book draws the attention of the non-Kannada readers to the entire body of Vaidehi’s writings. Lucidly translated into English by the noted translator O L Nagabhushana Swamy, T P Ashoka’s Vaidehi Kathana provides a meaningful opportunity for the non-Kannada readers to familiarize themselves with one of the greatest contemporary writers of India. T P Ashoka’s Vaidehi Kathana is a significant contribution to modern Indian literary criticism. The book provides an interesting reading not only to the students of literature, researchers and teachers but also appeals to the general readers.

All human catastrophes triggered trails of literary creations everywhere in the world. The literatures spawned by the Great Plague of London, American Civil War, two World Wars, Holocaust, Communist Revolutions, Spanish Flu, and HIV are some of the glaring instances. The literary monuments they spewed stand like the lighthouses to guide the floundering ship of humanity to the safer shores of the stormy ocean. Similarly, there will be a surfeit of Corona literatures in times to come which would stand as testimony to this unprecedented calamity and inspire humanity to keep alert against such future eventualities. We have had our chance but may not have the next? “Awake, Arise, and Act!” Each story in the collection depicts an unsavory situation, precipitated by the sudden Corona afflictions, to display the ordinary young men and women making extraordinary moves to save their life, morality, and sanity. The innate elemental forces take full charge of the ghastly conditions and the characters hold on by the dint of their innate physical strength, moral courage, and intellectual ingenuity. Finally they come out victorious and spend the rest of their lives happily. The stories both individually and collectively send out a message to the vulnerable people not to give in but to fight heroically in the face of the deadly conditions. The victory will be ultimately yours in life as well as in death.