HERALD REPORTER
VASCO, DEC 25, 2009
Hailing the declaration of Sahitya Academy award to veteran Konkani poet Jess Fernandes, the Goan Poets’ Forum has said it strongly subscribes to the view that Konkani in Roman script meets all parameters of high literary standard.
In press note, Goan Poet’ Forum President Yusuf Sheikh congratulated the Fernandes for the national honour.
“Interestingly, all poems in ‘Kirvontt’, the book that fetched him national honour, were written in Roman script and then transliterated in Devnagri script so as to come out with this award winning publication in both the scripts,” said Shaikh.
Sheikh, described Jess as a brilliant angry poet with tremendous creative ability to highlight issues related to a common man and bring about social awakening.
“That at last the work produced originally in Roman script got recognition after more than three decades of recognition of Konkani as a literary language is gratifying,” said Sheikh. It is high time that the highest National academy of letters rise above the script barriers and appreciate moments and events captured and presented by literary luminaries with great sensibility and fine imagination, Yusuf Sheikh added.
While congratulating Jess Fernandes for original Konkani fervor in his writings, Sheikh in an advisory note to the new writers called upon to desist from temptation of using too many words from other languages.
“Instead, the coinage of new words from original Konkani experimented by writers like Xenoi Goembab and Manoharrai Sardessai would go a long way to maintain lustre of the language and keep it at heart for ever,” said Sheikh.
Goan Poets’ Forum also congratulated Vaidehi, a woman writer from coastal Mangalore area who contributed immensely to the subjects of social awakening and fetched this year’s Sahitya Akademi award for her collection of short stories in Kannada.
26/12/2009
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Photo courtesy Lino B. Dourado
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