A collection of Sripadas short stories

In the first half of the twentieth century, great writers such as Gidugu, Gurajada and Kandukuri enriched Telugu literature through their pen. Late Sripada Subrahmanaya Sastry, Adhunika Katha Chakravarthy (king of short stories) bestowed brilliant short stories upon us. Manasu Foundation, an organisation striving to publish books of veteran writers and poets, released Sripada Subrahmanya Sastry’s ‘A Collection of Short Stories’ at Telugu University on Thursday.

It was attended by many Telugu poets, writers and critics. Presiding over the book release, writer and critic Kethu Viswanadha Reddy said, “The efforts of Manasu Foundation are laudable. They are bringing works of famous writers into the limelight, within the reach of the literary world. Sripada Subrahmanya Sastry in particular has done great service to the short story field.” Reddy added that even though Sripada was an orthodox Vedic Brahmin he took short story as a weapon to reform the society.

“Sastry’s language and style is filled with proverbs and full of observations on the society of that time,” Reddy added. Short story writer Kalipatnam Rama Rao released the book and gave the first copy to Vachaspathi, grandson of Sripada Sastry. In his keynote address, writer Poranki Dakshinamurthy said “Sastry expressed his thoughts and fell into the habit of coining new words, much to the merriment of the readers. That was his strength”.

He added that Sripada was a person of great self-esteem and was pragmatic in his approach to one and all. Another writer Vedagiri Rambabu, reviewing the life and works of Sripada, stated, “I am a proud son of Telugu literature. Sripada’s writing style had a conversational touch to it.” Vedagiri lauded the services of Chamarthi Kanakayya who had researched on the books of Sripada. He added that the government should prescribe a procedure to preserve the works of noted writers.