A writer par excellence: Yaddanapudi Sulochana Rani

​Hyderabad: The kind of Telugu novel has two Rajasekharas – one of Kandukuri’s Rajasekhara Charitramu and the other is Yaddanapudi Sulochana Rani’s Secretary. The novel, her first, which hit the stands in 1967, was a revelation of sorts. Till date, no other book in the Telugu literature evoked such a humongous response that Secretary had managed to do.

It was Yaddanapudi’s genius that galvanised women when not many were aware of word ‘feminism’. It’s no exaggeration to say that she owned 1970s and 80s with her scintillating novels that reflected the dreams and deeds of the middle class with a sensuous touch. 

She dealt the self-esteem of women with a deft touch that no other writer this par was able to master it. The fact is that her novels were coeval to the times of women of the kind was trying to break free of shackles. This apart, her work shifted the paradigm of reading from the detective novels to middleclass-centric drama. 

Moreover, readers used to see themselves in the characters created by her. Her era that began with Secretary, extended to three decades before the new-age writers took over the baton. Writers, who became popular after 80s, owe a lot to Yaddanapudi as she was the one who created inquisitiveness about book reading among the people. 

“We have a long association with the Navala Desapu Rani, a name bestowed to Yaddanapudi by the readers. By far, Secretary, with 90 reprints, is the best seller ever in the history of Telugu literature,” Vijay Kumar of EMESCO Books, the eight-decade-old Vijayawada-based publishing house, who broke the news first that the legend, who was on US trip where her daughter Shailaja lives, is no more, told The Hans India.  

There were quite a few instances of male writers urging me to print their novels in the name of women, he said, referring to the fame Yaddanapudi brought to the women novelists. 

It may be noted here that EMESCO had published 37 of 74 novels written by Yaddanapudi, who was born in Kaza of Krishna district in 1940. She was in California with her daughter when she suffered heart attack. She lost her husband Narsimha Rao a couple of years ago. 

“What is astonishing is that she didn’t have much of educational qualifications but the pinnacle she reached is hard to scale for ordinary mortals,” Bellamkonda Prasen, writer and critic, said, stating that she was an expert in presenting the dreams and melancholy of middleclass people especially women. 

Many of her novels, including Secretary, Meena, Jeevana Tharangalu, Radhakrishna, Premalekhalu, Atmeeyulu, Chandipriya, witnessed a stupendous success at the box-office. This apart, many a serial on television channels were based on her novels. As late as in 2016, Trivikram’s ‘A Aa’ movie was also inspired by Yaddanapudi’s Meena. It’s often said that some top heroes’ success was attributed to Yaddanapudi’s novels.