Popular poet and Member of Legislative Council, Goreti Venkanna, has bagged the Sahitya Akademi award for the year 2021 for his work Vallanki Taalam , a compilation of poems.
The poems are connected with nature and environment and presented through the voice of a bird “Vallanki Pitta.” ‘Vallanki’ is a passerine bird (also known as song bird) while ‘Taalam’ means a musical beat. The award carries an engraved copper plate, shawl and an amount of ₹1 lakh, and will be presented at a special ceremony, the date of which would be announced later.
Venkanna, who hails from Gowrelli village in Nagarkurnool district, is considered a born poet and is rooted to the village life while his songs are strongly connected to human emotions. He ventured into films as well and one of his iconic songs that continues to be on the lips on every Telugu-speaking person is Palle Kanneru Peduthundo from the movie Kubusam .
The Sahitya Akademi Yuva Puraskar 2021 in Telugu went to Thagulla Gopal for his work Dandakadiyam , which is also a compilation of poems related to Telangana agitation and it also reflects the lives of the Yadava community to which the writer belongs to.
Bala Sahitya Puraskar in Telugu was given to Devaraju Maharaju for his play Nenu Ante Evaru . Mr. Devaraju is known for his poems in Telangana dialect and is said to be the first poet to use the dialect in his poems. Both the Yuva Puraskar and Bala Sahitya Puraskar awards carry an engraved copper plate and an amount of ₹50,000 each.
The awards were announced in 20 languages by the Sahitya Akademi that met on Thursday under the chairmanship of Chandrashekhar Kambar, president. This year the awards went to seven books of poetry, two novels, five short stories, two plays and one each in biography, autobiography, criticism and epic poetry sections.
Meanwhile, Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao congratulated Mr. Goreti Venkanna for the prestigious award and also the two other winners. He said Mr. Venkanna’s poetry unveils the day to day problems of life with a touch of social philosophy mirroring the universal man’s pain.
He also hailed Mr. Venkanna for beautifully unveiling the umbilical relationship between human life and nature, relationship between man and other animals and birds.
“Through his literature Goreti Venkanna made the scent of Telangana soil get universal recognition,” the CM said while recalling Venkanna’s songs and literature contributing to the separate Telangana statehood movement. Mr. Rao was happy that all the three winners hailed from Telangana and said it shows the literary caliber of Telangana.
TPCC president A. Revanth Reddy also congratulated Mr. Goreti Venkanna and the other two winners.
