PREFACE
Gurajada Venkata Apparao's diaries, letters and notes, all in English, should be viewed as one unit that provides an accurate assessment of his life and the contemporary literary and social movements. In fact, they are more helpful than his poems, short stories and plays to get a comprehensive picture of his varied activities and versatile genius. Such invaluable material has been in the dark for over a century.
I believe that Prajasakti Publishing House acquired the manuscripts from the successors of Gurajada in 1946 and got them translated into Telugu by Avasarala Surya Rao, a well-known writer. Subsequently the translated version of the diaries was published by Visalandhra Publishing House, Vijayawada, a premier publisher in Andhra Pradesh. Deciphering the scrawl of Gurajada, leave alone the translation, is a Herculean task, however expert the translator may be. Surya Rao fulfilled this task with great perseverance and zeal. A few lapses might have been committed in deciphering the script. Such lapses cannot mitigate the magnitude of his work.
After nearly four decades, the manuscripts, I trust most of them, were handed over by Visalandhra Publishing House to the Andhra Pradesh State Archives, Hyderabad obviously for safe custody and proper preservation. My friend Dr. Kalidasu Purushotham, who is deeply interested in the literature of Gurajada, and I visited the State Archives several times to study these records. It appears by the time Gurajada's papers reached the Archives, many of the important documents, were lost. Kanyasulkam manuscript, manuscripts of his poems etc. were
