Ramchandra Chintaman Dhere (21 July 1930 – 1 July 2016) was a
Marathi
Marathi may refer to:
*Marathi people, an Indo-Aryan ethnolinguistic group of Maharashtra, India
*Marathi language, the Indo-Aryan language spoken by the Marathi people
*Palaiosouda, also known as Marathi, a small island in Greece
See also
*
* ...
Pune district
Pune district (Marathi pronunciation: uɳeː is the most populous district in the Indian state of Maharashtra. The district's population was 9,429,408 in the 2011 census, making it the fourth most populous district amongst India's 640 district ...
. He was orphaned at an early age of five. He studied at Municipal School, Pune, Poona English School, Poona Night School and graduated in 1966. During high school days he worked as a proof reader in the local press.
Dhere earned a PhD in Marathi in 1975. His doctoral thesis titled ''Shtsthal: Ek Adhyan'' was completed under the guidance of Ramchandra Shankar Walimbe. In 1980, he became the first person to obtain a Doctorate of Literature from
Pune University
Savitribai Phule Pune University (SPPU), formerly the University of Poona, is a collegiate public state university located in the city of Pune, India. It was established in 1949, and is spread over a campus in the neighbourhood of Ganeshk ...
.
Career
From his childhood, Dhere was deeply influenced by folk-life and literature. He was drawn towards saint literature such as
Warkari
Warkari ( Marathi: वारकरी; Pronunciation: aːɾkəɾiː Meaning: 'The one who performs the ''Wari) is a sampradaya (religious movement) within the bhakti spiritual tradition of Hinduism, geographically associated with the In ...
and
Nath
Nath, also called Natha, are a Shaiva sub-tradition within Hinduism in India and Nepal. A medieval movement, it combined ideas from Buddhism, Shaivism and Yoga traditions in India.saints. He also composed several poems and musical plays. Dhere lost almost all of his collection of old books in 1961 when the Panshet Dam broke flooding the city of Pune.
Dhere received a
Sahitya Akademi Award
The Sahitya Akademi Award is a literary honour in India, which the Sahitya Akademi, India's National Academy of Letters, annually confers on writers of the most outstanding books of literary merit published in any of the 22 languages of the ...
in 1987 for his literary criticism ''Shri Vitthal: Ek MahaSamanvay''. The highly influential book was translated to English by
Anne Feldhaus
Anne Feldhaus (Phelḍahāusa, Âna; born 1949) is Distinguished Foundation Professor of Religious Studies, Emeritus Professor, at Arizona State University. Her field of specialty is Maharashtra, India, combining philological and ethnographic a ...
and published by
Oxford University Press
Oxford University Press (OUP) is the university press of the University of Oxford. It is the largest university press in the world, and its printing history dates back to the 1480s. Having been officially granted the legal right to print books ...
in 2011.
Death and legacy
Dhere died in Pune on 1 July 2016 at the age of 86 following prolonged illness. Writer
Aruna Ramchandra Dhere
Aruna Ramchandra Dhere (Devanagari: अरुणा रामचंद्र ढेरे) (b. 2 Feb 1957) is a Marathi writer from Maharashtra, India. She was the President of the 92nd Akhil Bharatiya Marathi Sahitya Sammelan held at Yavatmal ...
is his daughter. In 2019, a library was built in Pune to preserve a collection of his books.