TELUGU
Fiction anthology
AMBIKA ANANTH
KOTTHA DUPPATI — Short Stories: Sannapu Reddy, Venkatarami Reddy; Visalandhra Book House, 4-1-435, Bank Street, Hyderabad-500001. Rs. 120.
THOUGH THE title story Kottha Duppati portrays an individual’s experience, the writer shows it as a collective experience of many people whose small wishes in their old age prove burdensome to others. The story is about a poor peasant’s wish to have a new blanket in biting winter and it unfolds to show both the flip and the bright sides of relationships very well. The honest articulation in first person in the story Nerchuko is morbidly real portraying the callousness of some doctors. Chanubaalu is another intense story told very effectively—the protagonist comes to know that he had survived as a baby. The stark reality of his past hits him. Other very impressive stories are Tadi, Kanneeti Katthi and Digambaram Nenu-Thanu Ooru Bindi.
The writer recaptures and conveys candidly the essence of emotions and perceptions with expressions that are yoked in concrete, real-world imagery full of Rayalaseema idiom and dialect. In its appropriation of different voices and perspectives, Reddy’s body of work expresses the consciousness of a writer whose roots are in village life, Dalit issues, social justice, and in human concerns.
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