 "Man Booker International shortlist: Who is UR Ananthamurthy?")
Veteran Kannada author UR Ananthamurthy has been named among one of ten authors on the Man Booker International prize shortlist 2013.
The Man Booker International Prize is a different award and isn’t the same as the Man Booker prize that is handed out every year.
According to the Man Booker website, “In seeking out literary excellence, the judges consider a writer’s body of work rather than a single novel. Worth £60,000, the prize is awarded every two years to a living author who has published fiction either originally in English or whose work is generally available in translation in the English language. The winner is chosen solely at the discretion of the judging panel and there are no submissions from publishers.”
Ananthamurthy, who turned 80 on 2012, is one of India’s foremost and pioneering Kannada authors, and was one of the faces of the ‘navya’ or ’new’ movement in Kannada literature.
He was also well known for his famous interviews with notable Kannada writers for Mysore radio.
He has authored five novels, one play, eight short-story collections, three collections of poetry and eight collections of essays, and his works have been translated into several Indian and European languages.
Ananthamurthy also enjoys huge recognition in India. He was the sixth of just eight recipients of the Jnanpith Award for the Kannada language, the highest literary honor conferred in India. In 1998, he received the Padma Bhushan award from the Government of India. Most recently, his novel Bharathipura, was awarded the Hindu Literary Prize in 2011.
According to the Booker website , “His work is known for its humanity and its courage in questioning cultural norms. Best known is his 1966 novel, Samskara, a story that asks: Can culture survive only if it is followed with blind fervour?”
Ananthamurthy’s novels are also known for elegantly capturing the effect of unusual and artificial situations on individuals and their relationships with one another. A number of his works like Samskara and novelette Bara have also been turned into films.
(Read the Wikipedia article on Ananthamurthy here )
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 "In UR Ananthamurthy's seminal novel Avasthe, rare insights into the human condition")
 "In Prof G Venkatasubbaiah's legacy, an abiding love for Kannada and awareness of its role in a globalised world")
 "Prof G Venkatasubbaiah, renowned Kannada lexicographer, passes away in Bengaluru at 107")
 "NS Lakshminarayana Bhatta, a tour de force in Kannada literature, dies at 84")