In Manoj Das’s Mrs Crocodile, written in 1975, a Western anthropologist visits a primitive village, and seeks out and listens riveted to the story of a woman who is said to have married a crocodile. It tells of a man so disturbed by the unrest in his home and the death of his wife, that he leaves the world behind to become a sanyasi. Reba Ray’s Sanyasi, written in 1899, is recognised as the first Odia short story by a woman. Before this, longer prose and poetry dominated. Senapati’s Rebati, about a young village girl desperate for an education, was written in 1898 and is widely considered the first short story in Odia literature. There are short stories by masters such as Fakir Mohan Senapati, Gopinath Mohanty, Reba Ray and contemporary voices such as Pratibha Ray and Nrusingha Tripathi. One of the stories dates back to 1898, others were written as recently as 1999. Odisha comes to life in The Greatest Odia Stories Ever Told, a collection of 24 traditional and contemporary Odia tales selected and translated by Leelawati Mohapatra, Paul St-Pierre, and KK Mohapatra.
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