Gopinath Mohanty Compilation
Legendary writer Gopinath Mohanty has brought Odia literature to the attention of the world through his contributions covering diverse fields like novels, short stories, drama, tribal anthropology and language and through his reseach on Sarala Mahabharat. He was the first Odia recipient of Sahitya Akademi award (1955 for ‘Amrutara Santana’) and Jnanpitha award (1974 for ‘Matimatala’). He also received the Sovietland Nehru award for his translation of Maxim Gorky’s ‘My University’ in 1970.
He was born on April 20, 1914 at Nagabali, a village on the outskirts of Cuttack. His father was Suryamani Mohanty and mother Durgadebi. Renowned Odia writer Kahnucharan Mohanty was his elder brother.
Gopinath Mohanty joined the Odisha administrative service after completing his postgraduate studies in English literature from Patna University in 1938. He worked at Jajpur, Koraput, Jeypur, Baragad, Chhatrapur, Aska, Cuttack, Rayagada, Puri and finally at Bhubanesar during his service period. During this time he portrayed the people and life at these places through his writings. He retired from service at the age of 55 years in 1969. He spent over a year during 1986-87 as an invited speaker at various Universities of California and recorded his travel experience.
He has to his credit 25 novels, more than 200 short stories, a fascinating autobiography (unfortunately incomplete after 3 volumes), 3 biographies, a unique volume of literary criticism, 2 kavyas, 5 translations, 5 books relating to tribal language, a book consisting of 9 research-based essays on Sarala Mahabharat and a book presenting about 30 letters. There are still many writings of his yet unpublished.
Gopinath Mohanty breathed his last at Sanhose, California, on August 20, 1991.
Digital copies of Gopinath Mohanty’s writings can be accessed through the table below. Clicking on any image or title will give the option either to open (read on screen) or download the file. The digital copies are released under GPL (GNU Public License with Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International Licence). Briefly stated, these are free for personal use but require permission from the author’s family for commercial use. For more information on the licensing please visit the GPL and CC websites
Prof. Omkarnath Mohanty has made available most of the books of Gopinath Mohanty. The titles without a link are yet unavailable. These can be added here if any one can provide the printed copies.