>
> That was a very interesting discussion on the length of short story
> Prof.Rao raised. I believe that, in all the forms of fiction, short story
> is the most powerful, and also very difficult to write. Short story
> prospered the most probably, in English. Though telugu writers discovered
> the importance of this form quite early, it did not quite catch on as did
> the concept of novel. For interested people, I recommend Smt.Parvati's
> prize winning article on 'telugu navala - social impact', published in
> TAGDV's souvenir a couple of years ago. Short stories did not catch on
> until the boom in weekly and monthly magazines about 10 years ago.
I have to disagree. (Boy, I am fast becoming the curmudgeon in
this group, amn't I?)
My points of disagreement first: 1) The short story in Telugu has a
great history. 2) The short story in Telugu caught on quite early and
prospered quite nicely. 3) The early part of this century saw some of the
greatest short stories written in Telugu. 4) The period between
1980-1990 is considered one of the weakest periods in Telugu short story.
5) The last five (make it three or four, if you wish) years saw a revival of
the short story in Telugu.
gurazaaDa apparaavu wrote, I think, about five short stories, all
of them with enough vitality to be living even today. Nasy garu already
talked about Sreepaada's short stories. chintaa deexitulu, munimaaNikyam,
gOpeechand, chalam, butchibaabu, koku, chaasO and the others did some of
their best work before 1950. I do not remember when raaviSastry wrote
his first short story, but it is around that time too.
bhaarathi and Andhra patrika of 1950s and early 1960s published
some of the best works of muLLapooDi, si.raamacahndra raavu, IJ raavu
etc. beenaadEvi's work is from the 60s. most of palagummi padmaraaju's
work is before 1960s. Late 60s and the 70s saw kaLeepaTnam's yaJnam,
caavu, aarti etc, as well as several other great stories from the left
leaning writers.
By 1980s, the success of yanDamoori (himself a good short story
writer) and maalladi brand of novels, and the sell of the soft-porn by
the mainstream magazines, muscled the better short stories out. But the
advent of rachana and aahvaanam as well as the efforts by the likes of
vEdagiri raambabu, vaasireDDi naveen, paapinEni SivaSankar, andhra prabha
weekly under vaakaaTi, bharaagO's work with the jyEshTa foundation etc
have changed the climate quite a bit. There is a lot more interest today
in writing and publishing better quality short stories.
During my recent trip to India, I was able to purchase over two
dozen antholgoies of Telugu short stories (some from a single author, and
some from multiple authors either over a period of time or from a
particular region). given that publishers were reluctant to publish a
short story anthology not too long ago (as they were deemed unprofitable
and slow to sell), the fact that those many were available and katha-91
was out of print and unavailable, made me feel good.
Regards. ----- V. Chowdary Jampala