U. R. Ananthamurthy (21 December 1932 – 22 August 2014) was an Indian novelist, short-story writer, critic and teacher who wrote in Kannada. He was a leading figure of the Navya (modernist) movement in Kannada literature. His first novel, Samskara (1965), which questions Brahmin orthodoxy through the story of a priest faced with a moral crisis, is considered one of the great Indian novels of the twentieth century. He received the Jnanpith Award in 1994 and the Padma Bhushan in 1998 and was a finalist for the Man Booker International Prize in 2013.
Quick Facts
| Full name | Udupi Rajagopalacharya Ananthamurthy |
| Born | 21 December 1932, Melige, Shimoga district, Mysore State (now Karnataka), India |
| Died | 22 August 2014, Bengaluru, Karnataka (aged 81) |
| Occupation | Novelist, short-story writer, critic, professor of English |
| Language | Kannada |
| Education | University of Mysore (M.A.); University of Birmingham (Ph.D. 1966) |
| Spouse | Esther (m. 1956) |
| Children | 2 (Sharath and Anuradha) |
| Honours | Jnanpith Award (1994), Padma Bhushan (1998) |
Early Life
Ananthamurthy was born in Melige, a village in the forested hills of Tirthahalli taluk, into an orthodox Brahmin family. His first schooling was in a traditional Sanskrit school. He went on to take a master’s degree in English at the University of Mysore, where he was drawn to the socialist ideas of Ram Manohar Lohia. A Commonwealth scholarship took him to the University of Birmingham in England, where he earned a doctorate in 1966 for a thesis on politics and fiction in the 1930s.
Career
He wrote Samskara in Birmingham. In the novel, the death of a rebellious Brahmin who had broken every rule of his community leaves its leader, a learned and austere priest, unable to decide who may perform the funeral rites, and his search for an answer overturns his own life. The book caused controversy among orthodox readers. A film version made in 1970, with a script by Girish Karnad, was at first banned by the censors and then won the National Film Award for Best Feature Film. A. K. Ramanujan’s English translation brought the novel a worldwide readership.
His later novels include Bharathipura (1973), about a foreign-returned man who tries to take Dalits into his town’s temple, Avasthe (1978) and Bhava (1994). He also wrote short stories, among them “Ghatashraddha” and “Suryana Kudure”, as well as poetry and essays.
Ananthamurthy taught English at the University of Mysore for many years. He was vice-chancellor of Mahatma Gandhi University in Kottayam, Kerala, from 1987 to 1991, chairman of the National Book Trust in 1992 and president of the Sahitya Akademi from 1993. He later chaired the Film and Television Institute of India.
Public Life
He argued for the importance of writing in Indian languages rather than English and successfully urged that Karnataka’s cities use their Kannada names, which led to Bangalore becoming Bengaluru. He stood for Parliament unsuccessfully in 2004. A critic of Hindu nationalism, he said before the 2014 election that he would not want to live in an India governed by Narendra Modi, a remark that drew protests.
Personal Life and Death
In 1956 he married Esther, a Christian, an inter-faith marriage that was unusual for the time. They had a son, Sharath, and a daughter, Anuradha. He suffered from kidney disease in his last years and died of kidney failure and cardiac arrest in Bengaluru on 22 August 2014.
Selected Works
Awards and Honours
Frequently Asked Questions
When and where was U. R. Ananthamurthy born?
U. R. Ananthamurthy was born on 21 December 1932 in Melige, Shimoga district, Mysore State (now Karnataka), India.
When did U. R. Ananthamurthy die?
Died: 22 August 2014, Bengaluru, Karnataka (aged 81).
What is U. R. Ananthamurthy’s occupation?
Occupation: Novelist, short-story writer, critic, professor of English.
What honours has U. R. Ananthamurthy received?
Jnanpith Award (1994), Padma Bhushan (1998).
Featured image: U. R. Ananthamurthy at his home in Bengaluru. Photo by H. P. Nadig, licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
