Masti Venkatesha Iyengar

Maasthi Venkatesha Iyengar
Born 6 June 1891(1891-06-06)
Hongenahalli, Malur taluk, Kolar district, Karnataka
Died 6 June 1986(1986-06-06) (aged 95)
Bangalore
Pen name Srinivasa, Maasti
Occupation District Commissioner, Professor, Writer
Nationality India
Genres Fiction
Literary movement Navodaya

Maasthi Venkatesha Iyengar (Kannada:ಮಾಸ್ತಿ ವೆಂಕಟೇಶ ಐಯಂಗಾರ್) (June 6, 1891 - June 6, 1986) was a popular writer in Kannada language. He was the fourth person among eight recipients[1] of Jnanpith Award for Kannada the highest literary honour conferred in India.[2] He was popularly referred to as Maasti Kannadada Aasti which means Maasti is Kannada's Treasure. He is most renowned for his short stories. He wrote under the pen name Srinivasa. He was honored with the title Rajasevasakta by then Maharaja of Mysore Nalvadi Krishnaraja Wadeyar.

Contents

Early life and education

Maasti was born in 1891, at Hongenahalli in Kolar district of Karnataka in a Tamil speaking Sri Vaishnavaite family. He spent his early childhood in Maasti village. Due to poverty, he moved from place to place until he obtained a master's degree in English literature (Arts) in 1914 from Madras University. After joining the Indian Civil Service (Known as the Mysore Civil Service in the days of the Maharaja of Mysore), he held various positions of responsibility in different parts of Karnataka, rising to the rank of District Commissioner. He retired in 1943.

Works

His Kelavu Sanna Kategalu (Some Short Stories) was the first noted work in the modern Kannada literature. Maasti also crafted a number poems on various philosophic, aesthetic and social themes. He composed and translated several important plays. Finally, he edited the monthly journal Jivana (Life) from 1944 to 1965.

A prolific writer, he wrote more than 120 books in Kannada and 17 in English, for over seventy years. He won the Jnanpith Award in 1983 for his novel Chikkavira Rajendra. The story was about the last Kodava king. Kodava community was displeased with the negative portrayal of their last king.

He died in 1986 at the age of 95.

Bibliography

He was a close friend of D.V.Gundappa, Nittor Srinivasa Rao, Prof V.T.Srinivasan and V.T.Kumar
Epics

Novels

Stories and Anthologies

Plays

Autobiography

Other

Notes

  1. ^ "Jnanapeeth Awards". Ekavi. http://ekavi.org/jnanpeeth.htm. Retrieved 2006-10-31. 
  2. ^ "Jnanpith Laureates Official listings". Jnanpith Website. http://jnanpith.net/laureates/index.html. 
1965-1985

G. Sankara Kurup (1965) · Tarashankar Bandopadhyay (1966) · Kuppali Venkatappagowda Puttappa, Umashankar Joshi (1967) · Sumitranandan Pant (1968) · Firaq Gorakhpuri (1969) · Viswanatha Satyanarayana (1970) · Bishnu Dey (1971) · Ramdhari Singh 'Dinkar' (1972) · D. R. Bendre, Gopinath Mohanty (1973) · Vishnu Sakharam Khandekar (1974) · P. V. Akilan (1975) · Asha Purna Devi (1976) · K. Shivaram Karanth (1977) · Sachchidananda Vatsyayan (1978) · Birendra Kumar Bhattacharya (1979) · S. K. Pottekkatt (1980) · Amrita Pritam (1981) · Mahadevi Varma (1982) · Masti Venkatesha Iyengar (1983) · Thakazhi Sivasankara Pillai (1984) · Pannalal Patel (1985)
1986-2000

Sachidananda Rout Roy (1986) · Vishnu Vaman Shirwadkar (1987) · C. Narayana Reddy (1988) · Qurratulain Hyder (1989) · V. K. Gokak (1990) · Subhas Mukhopadhyay (1991) · Naresh Mehta (1992) · Sitakant Mahapatra (1993) · U. R. Ananthamurthy (1994) · M. T. Vasudevan Nair (1995) · Mahasweta Devi (1996) · Ali Sardar Jafri (1997) · Girish Karnad (1998) · Nirmal Verma, Gurdial Singh (1999) · Indira Goswami (2000)
2001-present