Mangalore: Gokuldas Prabhu elected president of Akhil Bharatiya Konkani Parishad

Media Release

Mangalore, Feb 11: Noted Konkani writer Gokuldas Prabhu has been elected as the next president of Akhil Bharatiya Konkani Parishad for the term 2014-16.

Prabhu (59) who hails from Kerala and has a post graduate degree in English Literature. He has been active both as a creative writer and a versatile translator. He has two collections of short stories, a novel, an edited book and translation of three Malayalam novels into Konkani to his credit. His short stories have been translated into English, Hindi, Kannada, Malayalam and Marathi.

Prabhu was the editor of Rutu, the bimonthly Konkani periodical devoted to Poetry for five years. He was the President of the 14th Akhil Bharatiya Konkani Sahitya Sammelan held at Porvorim in April, 2001. He has earlier served the Parishad as its general secretary and executive president. He represents Konkani on the general council of the Kendriya Sahitya Akademi, New Delhi and is associated with the World Konkani Centre, Mangalore.

He won the Dr TMA Pai Foundation Award (1993) and the Kendriya Sahitya Akademi Award (1994) for his collection of short stories Antarayaami. While his translation of M T Vasudevan Nair’s classic novel Nalukettu (Chavki) fetched the Kendriya Sahitya Akademi’s Translation Prize (2002), Soofeen Saangil’li Kaanni, the translation of K P Ramanunni’s Malayalam novel got the Shyam R S Kakodkar Translation Award from the Konkani Kala Sahitya Kendra, Goa (2010). The Kullagar Award was also conferred on him in 2005.

Aravind Bhatikar, IAS (retd), the present president will hand over the charge to Prabhu during the 29th session of the Parishad which is scheduled to be held at Belgaum from February 28 to March 2.