According
to Mr. Lakshmi Prasad, the seeds
of literature, especially of
Hindi and Telugu, were sown in
his mind in childhood itself.
"Both my parents were teachers
in the village school. And my
father being a nationalist,
Hindi literature was part of the
culture at home. Moreover, the
grooming at home was nourished
at the village temple, where in
the evenings the regular
discourse of puranas and
performace of harikathas used to
take place. The rhythmic
chanting of slokas in the temple
and the recitation of verses
from the books of Hindi poets
like Harivanshrai Bachchan and
Premchand by my father at home
inspired me to take up Hindi
literature later in my academic
career. At every point of my
academic career I was motivated
by my professors to write
something worthwhile and from my
PG days I started to write and
since then had never looked
back."
So far Mr. Lakshmi Prasad has
written over 32 books in Telugu
and Hindi and over 100 articles
in various newspapers. In Hindi
his books comprise biographies
of noted poets like Bhairagi,
C.Narayana Reddy and Tripuraneni
Ramaswamy Chowdary and
translation of works of Bezwada
Gopala Reddy and C.Narasimha Rao.
In Telugu he penned the
biography of Jayaprakash Narayan
and translated the biography of
Harivanshrai Bachchan and works
of many other authors. But the
highlight was the Telugu
translation of Bisham Sahani's
novel 'Tamas' - and he did it in
22 days!
A recipient of Padmasri and
Central Sahitya Akademi award,
Mr. Lakshmi Prasad says that the
appreciation he got from people
like Amitabh Bachchan and P.V.
Narasimha Rao is much more than
the awards. "I could see tears
welling up the eyes of Mr.
Bachchan when I presented him a
copy of his father's biography,
and Narasimha Rao wrote a
preface comprising 29 pages
appreciating my Telugu book on
Hindi Sahitya Charitra. What
else could one ask for?"
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