Mangaluru, Dec 21: Bolwar Mahammad Kunhi and Edwin Joseph Francis D'Souza, the two well-known authors from Dakshina Kannada have been chosen for the prestigious Central Sahitya Akademi Award for 2016 in Kannada and Konkani languages, respectively.
Earlier, he had received the Central Sahitya Akademi award forPaapu Gandhi, Gandhi Bapu Aada Kathe' under children's literature category. It has been translated into several languages. He is among the pioneering writers who have introduced the lives of Muslims to Kannada literary world in detail.
Swathanthryada Ota' is a novel which runs into 1,111 pages and is about the journey of a character called Chand Ali, who migrates from Pakistan during Partition and stays at an imaginary village Muthupady in India for 60 years, struggling to find his identity.
“The novel is an extension of a story I wrote 17 yea rs ago and the character has been haunting me for all these years till I developed it into a novel,” Kunhi said.
Born in Puttur of Dakshina Kannada district, Boluwaru is a gold medallist in MA in Kannada from the University of Mysore. He has retired as a chief manager of Sydicate Bank.
Edwin D'Souza has won the award for his Konkani novel Kallem Bhangaar (Black Gold). He said, “There could not be a better award when given at the right time and without lobbying. What is more important is to get an award when you feel that you deserve it. In my case all these three factors played their role.”
He was born in Valencia, Mangaluru in June 1948 and studied in St Aloysius (Autonomous) College, Mangaluru. He holds a degree in commerce, a postgraduate diploma in Konkani and five online diplomas from the Bible School, US, in Christian Theology.
His first short story in Konkani was published in 1964. Since then he has penned 33 novels, over 100 short stories, columns and satires. Many of his short stories have been translated into English, Kannada, Hindi, Kashmiri, Malayalam and Tamil.
He has won 13 state, inter-state and international awards for literature. His acclaimed short story A Cup of Hot Coffee was published by Late Khushwant Singh in his anthology, Our Favorite Indian Short Stories. Several of his short stories have been published by Kendra Sahitya Akademi, in its publications Prateechi and Indian Literature. The Goa Konkani Akademi published his 450-page novel Kallem Bhangaar in Devanagari script.
His spouse of 41 years Jane D'Souza was immensely happy. “I would consider it as the best-ever Christmas I ever had in my life so far. Sometime I wondered how he can write so much and so effortlessly without being distracted. Now I know he was born to write.”
Comments
Congratulations to Bolawar Mahammed Kunhi. He is a great writer and a star of our community. Some of his writings are very patriotic. This is a clear message to all those who question patriotism.
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