Vaidehi
BornVasanti[1]
(1945-02-12) 12 February 1945 (age 78)
Kundapur, Udupi, Karnataka, British India
Pen nameVaidehi
OccupationWriter
NationalityIndian
GenreKannada fiction
Notable awardsSahitya Akademi Award
2009
PartnerK.L. Srinivasa Murthy
Children2

Janaki Srinivasa Murthy popularly known by her penname Vaidehi was born on 12 February 1945. She is an Indian feminist writer and well-known writer of modern Kannada language fiction. Vaidehi is one of the most successful women writers in the language and a recipient of prestigious national and state-level literary awards.[2] She has won the Sahitya Akademi Award for her collection of short stories, Krauncha Pakshigalu in 2009.[3]

Biography

Early life

Vaidehi was born on 12 February 1945 to A. V. N. Hebbar (father) and Mahalakshmi (mother) in Kundapura taluk of Udupi district, Karnataka.[4] She grew up in a large traditional Brahmin family. She graduated with a bachelor's degree in Commerce from the Bhandarkar College in Kundapura. Her father is a lawyer and her mother was a homemaker. At home, a dialect of Kannada called Kundapur Kannada[4] is spoken and she uses this dialect in her works as well.[5] Vaidehi became her pen-name under unusual circumstances. Early in her writing career, she had sent a story to the Kannada weekly magazine Sudha for publication but later requested the publisher not to go ahead with the print as the story was non-fictional and included a real-life story. However, the editor went ahead with the publication by changing the author's name to 'Vaidehi'. This name stuck in her later writings as well as she gained popularity.

Married life

Vaidehi married to K. L. Srinivasa Murthy at the age of 23. The couple have two daughters, Nayana Kashyap and Pallavi Rao. After marriage Vaidehi moved to Shivamogga. Later the family moved to Udupi and then to Manipal where she currently resides. Vaidehi's daughter Nayana Kashyap is a translator, Kannada writer and English teacher. She has translated some of the Vaidehi's works into English including five novels.

Works

Collection of short stories

Beautiful essays

Novels

Collection of poems

Children's dramas

Biography

Translations

Awards

Vaidehi has won numerous awards for her writings in Kannada.

See also

References

  1. ^ "New Delhi Vaidehi Jess Fernandes Among Central Sahitya Akademi Award Winners". Archived from the original on 5 April 2012. Retrieved 18 February 2010.
  2. ^ "Five Novellas by Women Writers". Archived from the original on 25 February 2012. Retrieved 18 February 2010.
  3. ^ "2009 Sahitya Akademi Award list" (PDF). Sahitya Akademi. Retrieved 19 February 2010.[dead link]
  4. ^ a b "Standing at the threshold". The Hindu. Chennai, India. 1 January 2010. Archived from the original on 4 June 2011.
  5. ^ "A little-known 'Kannada' dialect on the wane". The Hindu. Chennai, India. 20 May 2009. Archived from the original on 25 May 2009.
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