Cuttack, Feb. 4: Literary fraternity paid tributes to Odia intellectual Pathani Patnaik, who died today at the age of 89.

Patnaik had received the Kendriya Sahitya Akademi award for his autobiography Jibanara Chalapathe.

Utkal Sahitya Samaj president Bijayananda Singh described him as "an incomparable example of an Odia litterateur, combining unique prowess over all genres of literature with an infinite capacity to evaluate them".

"It's an enormous loss for literary criticism, which will miss his insightful writings and voice that had contributed to Odia literature for nearly six decades," Singh told The Telegraph.

Sunamani Rout, a professor in the department of Odia at Shailabala Women's College, hailed him as "a high priest of Odia literary criticism whose speciality was pragmatism, originality and judicious analysis".

Noted Odia children's writer and Patnaik's neighbour, Maheswar Mohanty, said: "Starting out as a journalist and then as an academician, Pathani babu flourished as a prolific writer with creations ranging from appreciations on children's literature to novels to poems to short stories to linguistics."

Patnaik started writing when he was 20 years old. He got 33 essays and 17 poems published by the time he was 25. Later, Patnaik, through his Odia essays and literary criticism, became a respected intellectual voice in the state.

He was president of both the Odia Sahitya Akademi and the Utkal Sahitya Samaj, making him the only person to hold both the positions.

Born on September 9, 1928, at Golbai in Khurda district, Patnaik passed his matriculation exam from the local Gadadhar High School and intermediate in arts and bachelor in arts from SCS College, Puri.

After he finished his masters in Odia from Ravenshaw College in Cuttack, Patnaik had a brief stint as assistant editor of a vernacular daily in Cuttack and government language researcher in Delhi and Calcutta. Later, he joined the Odia department of Christ College in Cuttack as a teacher in 1954 and went on to become the first non-Christian principal of the college in 1982. He remained as principal till his retirement in 1988.

Patnaik was elected as president of the Utkal Sahitya Samaj in 1998 and appointed president of the Odisha Sahitya Akademi in 2000. He received the Odisha Sahitya Akademi Award in 1993 and the Kendriya Sahitya Akademi Award in 2010 for his autobiography Jibanara Chalapathe.

Patnaik had authored over 50 books. Some of his widely acclaimed books include Sahitya O Sanskruti, Sahitya Manisha, Sahitya Parikrama, Odia Upanyasa Sahityara Parichaya, Prabandha O Samalochana, Samaja O Sahitya, Sahitya O Samikhya and Odia Sahityara Itihasa.