Gopinath Mohanty is doyen of Odia Literature. He was born on April 20, 1914 in Nagbali village of Cuttack district. Besides being a dynamic administrator, he had left his marks in a variety of literary activities including novels, stories and fictions. In 1955, he was the first Odia to receive the Kendra Sahitya Akademi Award for his novel 'Amrutara Santan'. He was the first Odia to have been conferred with the prestigious 'Jnanapitha Award' for the novel 'Matimatala'. He was conferred with 'Padma Bhusan' in 1981. His first novel, ‘Mana Gahirara Chasa’, was published in 1940, which was followed by Dadi Budha (1944), Paraja (1945) and Amrutara Santan (1947). In 1986, he joined San Jose State University in the U.S.A. as an Adjunct Professor of Social Sciences. He died at San Jose, California on 20 August 1991