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A Different Drummer : Selected Short Stories
A fiction writer with a difference, G. A. Kulkarni (1923-1987), is a truly unique and unparalleled literary figure in the field of modern Indian fiction. He is a highly acclaimed and respected short story writer in modern Marathi fiction having written more than 150 short stories in Marathi between 1940 and 1987. He was awarded the prestigious Sahitya Akademi Award for his short story collection Kajalmaya published in 1972. This collection includes some of the near perfect and astounding stories like The Swami, Full Circle, The Spot and Don, the Crusader. All the unique features of G.A.’s short stories that make him a great literary genius with a difference are found in this collection. His realistic stories rooted in the Indian soil like The Sound of Bangles as well as his metaphorical, symbolic, allegorical tales which are fantastic epiphanies or metaphors of life like Life is a Journey are thought provoking and spellbinding world class short stories. This Birth Centenary Edition would suffice to prove why critics have compared him with literary geniuses like Franz Kafka and Jorge Luis Borges. This English translation is a step towards making G. A. Kulkarni’s incredible stories accessible to a wider audience in India and around the world. About the
Vilas Salunke, a retired Professor of English, holds a Ph.D. in English from Karnataka University. On a Cambridge University scholarship, he studied at Cambridge, U.K. in 1993. He has been an active translator of Marathi poetry and fiction into English for more than twenty years.
Vilas Salunke, a retired Professor of English, holds a Ph.D. in English from Karnataka University. On a Cambridge University scholarship, he studied at Cambridge, U.K. in 1993. He has been an active translator of Marathi poetry and fiction into English for more than twenty years.
327 pages, Kindle Edition
Published July 18, 2023
About the author
G.A. Kulkarni
31 books95 followersG.A. Kulkarni or simply "GA” was a legendary Marathi writer of short stories.
GA, who bought new strength and vitality to the Marathi short story, is admittedly the most distinguished exponent of that genre. He did not subscribe to the cause of modernism in literature. He charted his own separate course and cultivated new acuity and taste for a class of faithful readers.
GA created a world of his own in his short stories where his characters are in pursuit of the unknowable destiny. A dark mode reflects the inscrutable ways in which destiny shadows his characters. His use of symbolism, allegory and irony provides his stories a unique texture and ethos. His world encompasses a wide diversity of locales, situations, characters and experiences. The mythic, allegorical experiences make it difficult to sort out the realities from the dreams, themes, and meditations. Yet, it is possible for the reader to identify with is characters, places, and experiences because of his keen observation of human, animal, and social worlds in their beauty and deformity.
Critics observe that characters in GA’s world are multifaceted, but they are not independent. They lead their lives as if they are puppets guided by an unseen hand are unable to change the direction. Why they follow that path to their demise or why they cannot change it by their volition is not known. In that sense, his work is a reversal of direction fostered by the modernist short story in Marathi. GA's earlier short stories depicted the tragic and cruel aspects of human situation.
GA, who bought new strength and vitality to the Marathi short story, is admittedly the most distinguished exponent of that genre. He did not subscribe to the cause of modernism in literature. He charted his own separate course and cultivated new acuity and taste for a class of faithful readers.
GA created a world of his own in his short stories where his characters are in pursuit of the unknowable destiny. A dark mode reflects the inscrutable ways in which destiny shadows his characters. His use of symbolism, allegory and irony provides his stories a unique texture and ethos. His world encompasses a wide diversity of locales, situations, characters and experiences. The mythic, allegorical experiences make it difficult to sort out the realities from the dreams, themes, and meditations. Yet, it is possible for the reader to identify with is characters, places, and experiences because of his keen observation of human, animal, and social worlds in their beauty and deformity.
Critics observe that characters in GA’s world are multifaceted, but they are not independent. They lead their lives as if they are puppets guided by an unseen hand are unable to change the direction. Why they follow that path to their demise or why they cannot change it by their volition is not known. In that sense, his work is a reversal of direction fostered by the modernist short story in Marathi. GA's earlier short stories depicted the tragic and cruel aspects of human situation.
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