Comprehensive and authoritative, this volume offers an overview of the history of critical thought in Odia literature in South Asia. It will be essential for scholars and researchers of Odia language and literature, literary criticism, literary theory, comparative literature, Indian literature, cultural studies, art and aesthetics, performance studies, history, sociology, regional studies and South Asian studies. It will also interest the Odia-speaking diaspora and those working on the intellectual history of Odisha and Eastern India and conservation of language and culture.
Jatindra Kumar Nayak is former Professor of English, Utkal University, Bhubaneswar, Odisha, India. He is recipient of the Hutch-Crossword Book Award, 2004, and Katha Translation Award, 1997. He is a member of the English Advisory Board, Sahitya Akademi. His English translations of classic Odia novels include Chandrasekhar Rath’s Yantrarudha (Astride the Wheel, 2003), Fakir Mohan Senapati’s Mamu (The Maternal Uncle, 2007) and J P Das’s Desh Kal Patra (A Time Elsewhere, 2009). He has co-edited Reminiscences: Excerpts from Oriya and Bangla Autobiographies (2004) and Memory, Images, Imagination: An Anthology of Bangla and Odia Writings on Colonial Burma (2010).
Animesh Mohapatra teaches English literature at Delhi College of Arts & Commerce, University of Delhi, India. His research interests include literary history, modernity studies, translation and print culture. He has co-edited a selection of critical essays by eminent Odia critic Natabara Samantaray in English translation, which was published by Sahitya Akademi in 2017. He has recently contributed a chapter on Odia devotional songs to a volume titled Bonding with the Lord: Jagannath, Popular Culture and Community Formation (2020).