ABSTRACT
This chapter traces the history of fiction from North Andhra drawing attention to the fact that many voices from North Andhra are yet to be heard in Telugu literature from this region. A region influences language and language becomes political in the issues of the region. While some language variants are terms as the standard either because they are spoken by certain people or in certain regions, certain other variants remain dialects which cannot become part of the mainstream discourse. Such a status of a language can be due to the subordinate status that the region enjoys also. Uttanrandhra (the Northern Andhra), also called Kalingandhra, narrates a similar story. Ignored by the rulers, affected by natural disasters, losing people for migration, Uttarandhra, that is the northern part of Andhra has been suffering for centuries now. Telugu literature coming from this region has been able to gain a place in the annals of mainstream literature. But, they all added to the mainstream discourse which is generalised as universal human life. Some contemporary writers have not been producing the sob stories alone about Kalingandhra but have been representing the pain and pleasure of those people and have been critiquing the governmental and societal attitude towards it. Attada Appala Naidu (1953) questions the hierarchical structures in society, literature and literary historiography. The Kalingandhra story began with a reformist ideology (“Diddubatu” by Gurajada) and depicted the social history of Kalingandhra that struggled (Yagyam by Kara), agitated (Adivantukundi by Bhushanam), defeated and wounded (Kshatagatraganam). The lives of the people living on the long coastal line of North Andhra are still not being recorded. The lives of some of the nomadic sections, apart from the Adivasis, have not been narrated as stories.
