Novelist C. Radhakrishnan, on Saturday, said writer, editor and thinker M. Govindan believed in the uniqueness of each individual and rejected all sorts of classifications and generalisations.
“The fact that ‘Poetry and Renaissance,’ the pithy volume edited by him has been republished, demonstrates the significance of his view of the issue of identity. While identity has been largely viewed from the prism of caste and community classifications, Govindan was stiff against such generalisations and said there’s nothing or no one like any other,” said Mr. Radhakrishnan at a function organised at Nanappa Art Gallery to introduce the reprinted volume, which was originally brought out as a ‘Kumaran Asan Birth Centenary Volume’ in 1974.
Mr. Radhakrishnan, who was chairman of the writers’ cooperative society Sahithya Pravarthaka Sahakarana Sangham (SPCS) recalled that naysayers in SPCS were pessimistic about the volume, but then his question who else would support such a brilliant tome silenced them. “In those times, we used to have allocation for pre-publication advertisements of anthologies by noted writers. Vyloppilli ’s anthology of poems was thus advertised but it only received 400 bookings. So we advertised again and four more copies got sold. There was no such publicity enjoyed by the book by M. Govindan, but it sold out in no time,” he said.
