'Gangadhar Gadgil' (born
August 25 1923 in
Mumbai) was a
Marathi fiction writer. A postgraduate in economics from the
University of Mumbai, he worked as professor of
economics in
Sydenham College and other colleges in Mumbai.
Gangadhar Gadgil is associated with various prestigious literary institutions of India. He also served as Vice President of the
Sahitya Akademi from
1988-
1993. He received the
Sahitya Akademi Award in 1996 for ''Eka mungice mahabharata'', his
autobiography. He has also been awarded with the Abhiruchi Award in 1949; the Maharashtra State Award, 1956, 1957, and 1960; the N.C. Kelkar Award in 1980; and the R.S. Jog Award in 1982. He is a
Rockefeller Foundation Fellow.
Gadgil's style, deceptively simple looking, is capable of measuring up to the complexity of his content. Offbeat imagery is one of its striking features, but it is used temperately. Gadgil has a fine sensibility; and, not being warped, it can respond to the gentle and the beautiful, however unpromising its exterior. Several of his stories have an implied social comment, but the comment widens out beyond the society into the universally human. (Kusumawati Deshpande and M.V. Rajadhyaksha. A history of Marathi literature. New Delhi : Sahitya Akademi, 1998). Apart from fiction, he has also authored a few children's stories, travelogues, and one-act plays.