Daijiworld Media Media Network - Mangaluru
Mangaluru, Aug 22: Kavita Trust which works for the promotion of Konkani poetry is organising James and Shobha Mendonca – VI Endowment Lecture on Poetry on Sunday, August 27 at 4 pm at Hotel Deepa Comforts here. Renowned Gujarati poet and critic Prof Sitanshu Yashaschandra will deliver the lecture on the topic 'Indian Ways of Understanding Poetry'.
The James and Shobha Mendonca Endowment Lecture on Poetry is an annual programme and this year is in its sixth edition. It is an occasion to interact with distinguished poets. Since the year 2012 renowned poets like Gulzar, Ashok Vajpeyi, Jerry Pinto, Arundhathi Subramaniam and Keki Daruwala have delivered this lecture.
Kavita Trust which is a registered body was founded in the year 2002. The Trust takes up number of projects to promote poetry. Spreading its wings in Konkani region, it has brought different dialects of Konkani under one fold by being the platform for poetic expression. It has taken the richness of poetry to the doorstep of the layman by way of poetry sessions, seminars, talks, symposiums, festivals and competitions. In the lat fifteen years Kavita Trust has held more than 125 programmes related to poetry.
Sitanshu Yashaschandra (born 1941) is contemporary Gujarati literature's most celebrated poet and playwright. He is also a critical theorist, translator and academic. He has received Central Sahitya Akademi Award (1987); Rashtriya Kabir Samman, (Madhya Pradesh) among many others. He was bestowed with Padma Shree by the Indian government in the year 2006.
He has been invited to read internationally from his poems and plays at Paris, Berlin, Frankfurt, Stuttgard, Moscow, Riga, Croetia, New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, Seoul etc and nationally at Delhi, Jaipur, Shimla, Chandigadh, Kolkata, Guwahati, Patna, Bengaluru, Thiruvananthapuram, Hyderabad and other places.
A Fulbright Scholar and a Ford West European Fellowship recipient, Yashaschandra has a doctorate in comparative literature from USA and another doctorate in Indian poetic from Mumbai. He worked as vice-chancellor (Saurashtra University), UGC emeritus professor and national lecturer, as well as chief editor of the Encyclopaedia of Indian Literature (Sahitya Akademi).
He has taught, as professor and chair of Gujarati, at the MS University of Baroda, from 1972, and has been a visiting professor at the Sorbonne University (Paris), University of Pennsylvania, (Philadelphia), the Loyola Marymount University (Los Angeles), and Jadavpur University (Kolkata).
The event will begin with tea at 4 pm and conclude by 6.15 pm.