RIP: D Jayakanthan, Gunter Grass and Eduardo Galeano
World literature mourns the loss of three veterans, legendary Tamil writer D Jayakanthan; Nobel Prize winner German novelist, Gunter Grass and award-winning Uruguayan writer Eduardo Galeano.
13 Apr 2015 | 7402 Views | By PrintWeek India
D Jayakanthan, passed away on 8 April after prolonged illness. He was 81.
Jayakanthan has been awarded with highly acclaimed awards, which include Padma Bhushan (2009), India's third-highest civilian honour, the Soviet Land Nehru Award (1978), and the Russian government's Order of Friendship (2011).
He has written 40 novels and 200 short stories apart from two autobiographies. He also co-produced and directed two films based on his novels. His popular novel, Sila Nerangalil Sila Manithargal, which was later made into a film, won him the Sahitya Akademi Award in 1972. He was also a recipient of the Jnanpith Award in 2002.
Grass was a novelist, poet, essayist, dramatist, sculptor and graphic artist, but gained international recognition after his first novel, The Tin Drum got published in 1958. His other popular works include Cat and Mouse (1961) and Dog Years (1963). Apart from being a writer, he was also a foreign honorary member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
The 1999 Nobel Prize winner had a special interest in India. He had been to India thrice and visited Mumbai, Kolkata and Delhi. During his visit to Kolkata, he encountered the poorer sections of the city. He captured his experience in the Indian chapter “Vasco returns” in his novel The Flounder.
Award-winning Uruguayan writer Eduardo Galeano has died, today. He was 74.
His best-known works are Las venas abiertas de América Latina (Open Veins of Latin America, 1971) and Memoria del fuego (Memory of Fire Trilogy, 1982–6), which have both been translated into 20 languages and transcend orthodox genres, combining journalism, political analysis, and history.
PrintWeek India salutes the three authors. A huge loss for literature.