Name Manoj Das Role Author | Movies Aranyaka | |
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Awards Padma ShriSahitya Akademi FellowshipSaraswati Samman Books Chasing the Rainbow, Selected Fiction: Manoj Das, Submerged Valley & Other Sto, A Tiger At Twilight & Cyclones, Sri Aurobindo | ||
Exclusive Interview with Sri Manoj Das, Eminent Odia Writer
Manoj Das (Odia: ମନୋଜ ଦାସ) (born 1934) is an award-winning Indian author who writes in Odia and English. In 2000, Manoj Das was awarded with Saraswati Samman. He was awarded Padma Shri in 2001, the fourth highest Civilian Award in India for his contribution in the field of Literature & Education. Kendra Sahitya Akademi has bestowed its highest award (also India's highest literary award) i.e Sahitya Akademi Award Fellowship.
Contents
- Exclusive Interview with Sri Manoj Das Eminent Odia Writer
- Speech by shri manoj das on sri aurobindo s 125th birth anniversary celebration at bhubaneswar
- Early life
- As Editor and Columnist
- Creative writing and story telling
- Politics
- Awards
- Selected works
- Commentary
- References
In 1971, his research in the archives of London and Edinburgh brought to light some of the little-known facts of India's freedom struggle in the first decade of the twentieth century led by Sri Aurobindo for which he received the first Sri Aurobindo Puraskar (Kolkata).
His deeper quest led him to mysticism and he has been an inmate of Sri Aurobindo Ashram in Puducherry since 1973 where he currently teaches English Literature and the Philosophy of Sri Aurobindo at the Sri Aurobindo International University.
Speech by shri manoj das on sri aurobindo s 125th birth anniversary celebration at bhubaneswar
Early life
Manoj Das was born in the small coastal village of Shankari in the Balasore district of Orissa. Since 1963, he has been an ashramite at Sri Aurobindo Ashram in Puducherry. He cites Fakir Mohan Senapati, Vyasa, and Valmiki as early influences.
He was a youth leader with radical views in his college days, playing an active role in Afro-Asian students' conference at Bandung, Indonesia, in 1959.
As Editor and Columnist
He edited a cultural magazine, The Heritage, published from Chennai in the 1980s. The magazine is no more in circulation.
He wrote columns on quest for finding eternal truth in common lives in India’s national dailies like The Times of India, The Hindustan Times, The Hindu and The Statesman.
Creative writing and story-telling
Manoj Das is perhaps the foremost bilingual Odia writer and a master of dramatic expression both in his English and Odia short stories and novels. Das has been compared to Vishnu Sharma, in modern Odia literature for his magnificent style and efficient use of words and for the fact that, he is one of the best story-tellers in India at present times. Over the years many research scholars have done their doctoral thesis on the works of Manoj Das, P. Raja being the first scholar to do so.
Politics
Among the other important positions that Das has held are, Member, General Council, Sahitya Akademi, New Delhi 1998–2002, and Author-consultant, Ministry of Education, Government of Singapore, 1983–85. He was the leader of the Indian delegation of writers to China (1999).
Awards
Selected works
Novels
Short Story
Travelogue
Poetry
History & Culture
Commentary
Once world famous fiction writer Graham Greene said, I have read the stories of Manoj Das with great pleasure. He will certainly take a place on my shelves besides the stories of Narayan. I imagine Odisha is far from Malgudi, but there is the same quality in his stories with perhaps an added mystery.