ANANTAPUR: Singamaneni Narayana, a well-known story writer who hailed from Anantapur, breathed his last on Thursday afternoon after a prolonged illness. He was 77 and is survived by his wife, three daughters and a son.Narayana was born on June 23, 1943. He hailed from a middle-class family from Bandameedapalli near Anantapur city. After his schooling in Anantapur, he did his higher studies in Tirupati and later worked as a Telugu pundit in various high schools in the district and retired in 2001.
The last rites will be performed at 8 am on Friday and till then the mortal remains would be kept at his house in Srinivas Nagar for the people to pay last respects.With a deep understanding of farmers’ suffering in this drought-prone district, the writer’s first story Nyayamekkada was published at the age of 17 in Krishna Patrika (1960) and there was no looking back. Since then, he published around 43 heart-touching stories.Narayana Rao’s stories mainly dealt with drought, water scarcity faced by Anantapur farmers and how the peasants committed suicide because of crop failures.
Some of his well-known stories and compilations were Joodam (1988), Singamaneni Narayana Kadhalu (1999), Anantham (2007) and Singamaneni Kadhalu (2012). He had also written a novel - Yedari Gulabilu.In 2017, Andhra Pradesh government had honoured him with Kala Ratna Award and this is in addition to numerous others by prestigious literary organisations. He was an inspiration for the generations of writers that followed him.