Literally meaning ‘of the new’, Navya refers to the modernist phase in Kannada literature which began in the 1950s and ran its course by 1980. Vinayaka Krishna Gokak’s poetry collection entitled Navya kavitegalu (New Poems) published in 1950 was the Kannada response to the English modernist poets’ injunction to ‘make it new’. While Gokak is recognized as bringing in newness in form, Gopalkrishna Adiga is credited with bringing novelty in theme and content. As against the Romanticism of the Navodaya writers, Navya writing is characterized by disillusionment (the failed promise of Nehru), biting sarcasm against encrusted tradition, and the restless quest for meaning and values in the present.