Karnataka novelist bags NTR Award

Hyderabad, Apr 20 (UNI) Karnataka novelist S L Bhyrappa has been selected for the first N T Rama Rao (NTR) National Literary Award for outstanding literary personality.

Addressing the press here today, NTR Vignan Trust Chairman and Managing Trustee and Former Chief Minister N T Rama Rao's wife N Lakshmi Parvathi said the trust decided to present the national award annually in the future.

The award carrying Rs one lakh would be presented to Mr Bhyrappa on May 28 here on the occasion of NTR Jayanti.

The selection committee included eminent literary personalities like Former Central Sahitya Academy Secretary K Satchidnandan and Kannada Scholar and Writer Pradhan Gurudut.

The 76-year-old Bhyrappa was the best selling novelist for the past 25 years both in original Kannada language and translation.

He was a serious literary artist, always concerned with fundamental human conditions and predicaments. In addition to in-depth study of Indian philosophical and cultural traditions, Bhyrappa had intense personal experience in both rural and urban settings since childhood.

He represented India in UNESCO seminar on Moral education in Tokyo in 1975 and was awarded British Council Fellowship in Department of Education in the University of London in 1977.

Ford Foundation sponsored his visit to the US to study the cultural problems of Indian Immigrants there in 1983. He also participated in East-West writers meeting held at Bled in Slovenia in 1991.

The scholar had visited many countries, including Europe, Scandinavia, Russia, Egypt, West Asia and United Kingdom, to widen experience of changing culture, relationship and sociological issues of both native and immigrant population.

UNI