Mangaluru: Renowned Konkani writer Gratian Pius D’Silva has passed away at the age of 67 in his residence on Monday. He wrote stories under his pen name ‘Herolpius’.
Herolpius was born on August 14, 1954, at Cordel in Mangaluru. Late John D’Silva and the late Marceline Fernandes were his parents. He published his first story at the age of 16 in 1970 in Jhelo Monthly. He has written about 170 short stories, 10 novels, 272 articles, over 200 poems, 1200-plus jokes, numerous stage plays, and skits.
He was honored with the Goa Konkani Basha Mandal award in 1972 for his novel ‘Don Thembe Dukam’. He is the author of popular novels such as ‘Ragat Ani Udak’, ‘Ek Adurem Pintur’, ‘Moja Sapnachi Raani’, ‘Sister Shobha’, ‘Mog Ani Thyag’, ‘Tum Mojens-bha’, ‘Lagnachim Paili Raat’, ‘Pusun Ghallo Polo’ and ‘Shimti Pale Vankdi, have highly appreciated by readers. He received the Karnataka Konkani Sahitya Academy award in 2017.
He was the honoured with prestigious ‘Daiji Dubai Literary Puroskar’ for the year 2012.
He worked in the Government of India’s central department at various positions and while retirement he was an immigration director of Mangaluru International Airport.
