Sahitya Academy plans e-route for Kannada

The Academy, established in 1961, has lined up several projects to mark its golden jubilee year. It was earlier functioning under the name “Samskruti Prachara Ilakhe.”

Academy chairman Prof M H Krishnaiah told Deccan Herald that one of the plans envisaged bringing children’s literature in 2-D animation forms.

“In the first phase, a compact disc consisting five poems penned by Kuvempu, Siddaiah Puranik, Panje Mangesharao, G P Rajarathnam and Machchimale Shankaranarayana Rao will be brought out. It costs about Rs 35,000 per minute of animation. Hamsakelha has scored music for all the poems,” he said.

Krishnaiah said the Academy will bring out books giving a brief outline and nature of poetry, novels, sonnets, gazals, epics and other forms of literature.

The narrative style and the content of the books will be such that they could be of use to non-literature students too. Noting that there are not many books on Indian poesy (Kavya Meemamse), Krishnaiah said the Academy would also publish books on Jain, Buddhist, Vachana, Dalit and Dasa sahitya.

 ‘Saalu Deepa,’ a 800-page book on 137 litterateurs, edited by critic Giraddi Govindaraju and published in 1990 will be made available in PDF format on the Academy’s portal, www.karnatakasahityaacademy.org.

The book in digitised format could even be downloaded for free. The Academy would use its own resources for all the projects, he added.