The Orphan and Incarnation

Ajay Mohapatra (b.1971), a story teller, novelist and a playwright of repute of Odisha is an Engineer by profession but an artist in passion; his paintings of life and manifold human aspects set him apart from many of his contemporary literary practitioners. As an ardent lover of Life and Nature, the master craftsman creates a wide variety of characters and unique situations with praiseworthy skill and flair. He has a genius for evoking the particular and peculiar atmosphere of relationships, their unspoken pressures and expectations, illusions, delusions and disillusionments. His men and women are of wildly different times and circumstances whose lives are made vividly palpable by the nuance and empathy of Mohapatra's writing. His narrative style is simple and direct but the turns and twists are spell-binding.Besides a number of books on Engineering and Vastu, he has authored eleven collections of short stories, four novels and twenty-one plays that bear testimony to him as a prolific and popular writer. Some of his books and short stories have been translated into Hindi, English and Sanskrit. Mohapatra has been showered with a number of awards and accolades besides the coveted Kabi Samrat Upendra Bhanja Samman.