Listen Janamejaya and Other Plays

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From the Jacket

G.S Amur is a distinguished critic and formerly Professor of English of Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar Marathawada University. Aurangabad. He writes criticism both in Kannada and English and has won several awards including Sahitya Academy Award in 1996. His important publications in English are The Concept of Comedy, Adya Rangacharya and Essays on Modern Kannada Literature. His Bhuvanada Bhagya which won the Akademi award has been considered as one of the very important works in Kannada criticism. He has edited several books in English and Kannada and written scholarly introductions to English translations of some important Kannada classics. Sahitya Akademi has published his monographs on A.N. Krishna Rao, Bendre, Shanthinatha Desai and Selected Kannada Short Stories edited by him.

Introduction

Adya Rangacharya (1904-1984) more familiar to his Kannada readers as Sriranga, was one of the most prolific and versatile writers in 20th century Karnataka. In his long literary career which began in 1920 while he was still at school and lasted till his death in 1984, there was hardly any form of literature, with the exception of poetry, on which he did not leave his permanent arks. He wrote plays and novels, biography and autobiography, criticism and philosophy, humorous of occasional writing. In many of these fields he was a pioneer and a pathfinder.

He was the most complete man of the theater that Karnataka, and perhaps the whole country, has produced so far. He wrote 47 full length plays, nearly 71 acters and directed and acted in quite a few of them. He was an acknowledged authority on dramatic art with several books on the subject both in Kannada and English. He spearheaded the theatre movement in Karnataka and strove hard to secure for the theatre its rightful place in society. Like his great contemporary T.P. Kailasam, he started writing plays at a time when the theatre in Kannada had become slavishly derivative, depending mostly on adaptations from Sanskrit, Marathi and English, and was dominated by commercialism, but within a span of three decades brought it to amazing maturity. If Kannada drama enjoys a national reputation today, much of the credit should go to Adya as a pioneer, though he has had illustrious successors in Girish Karnad and Chandrasekhar Kamber who have been as innovative as Adya himself and have reached even international audiences.

About the Author

Adya Rangacharya (1904-84) popularly known as Shrianga, was a prolific writer and a dedicated theatre personality. His Listen Janamejaya, a powerful play, has been widely acclaimed and much performed all over India. This play as well as six other Shrianga's plays, have been put together in this volume by Prof. G.S. Amur, a leading critic and distinguished writer. The collection LISTEN JANAMEJAYA AND OTHER PLAYS includes some of Shrianga's most important plays, translated by B.C. Ramchandra Sharma, Padma Ramchandra Sharma, Usha Desai, Shashi Deshpande and K. Raghavendra Rao as well as G.S. Amur himself.