Acollection of short stories, Sapanmogi by the veteran
writer Damodar Mauzo will be launched in Panjim on August 1 at the Multipurpose Hall of Sanskriti Bhavan, Patto. The function will be presided over by the Vice Chancellor of Goa University, Dr. Satish Shetye.
Pundalik Naik, litterateur and President of the Goa Konkani Akademi will be the chief guest while the Director of Art and Culture, Prasad Lolayekar,
a poet and playwright himself, will be the guest of honour. The book will
be released by Sulekha Rao.
This is Mauzo’s fifth collection, following Ganthon, Zagrannaa,
Rumodful and Bhurgim Mhogelim Tiim.. Though the writer was conferred the Sahitya Akademi Award (1983) for his novel
Karmelin, Mauzo is primarily a short fiction writer with two more collections in the pipeline. The book Sapanmogi contains some stories that have been widely acclaimed and published in translation into English and Hindi.
Published by Jaag Pralashan, the
book has an arresting cover designed
by artist Subodh Kerkar.
Incidentally, Mauzo has just completed
fifty years of writing short stories.
To his credit, he is the most extensively
published Konkani writer
in translation with his stories rendered
into Hindi, Maithili, Bengali,
Assamiya, Tamil, Telugu, Marathi,
Malayalam and others besides English,
French and Portuguese. His
story Minguel’s Kinwas awarded the
prestigious Katha Award in 1998. He
has also served as Nominating Editor
at Katha, a Delhi based organization
dedicated to promote this
genre nationally. Rupa
will shortly publish his
collection of stories translated
into English by
Xavier Cota after the successful
run of ‘These Are
My Children’ which was
the first ever solo collection
of a Konkani writer
in English. The translation
of his long stories Rumadful
translated by Vidya Pai are
also expected to be published during
this year. Earlier this year, the
Marathi version of this book translated
by Vishnu Surya Wagh was
published.
Damodar Mauzo, who has had a
dynamic stint at Sahitya Akademi, is
a co-curator of the Goa Arts and Literature
Festival that has held four
successful editions so far. He is y Advisor
to the 2014 Samanvay Festival
slated for November and organized
by the India Heritage Centre, New
Delhi, where a transnational presence
is expected. The book launch
function is organized by Jaag
Prakashan in collaboration with the
Directorate of Art and Culture and is
open to all.
