U. R. Ananthamurthy

U.R. Ananthamurthy (1932–2014) was a Kannada-language novelist, scholar, and public intellectual who is considered one of the most important figures in modern Indian literature. Born Udupi Rajagopalacharya Ananthamurthy in Thirthahalli, Karnataka, he was educated at the University of Mysore and the University of Birmingham, where he wrote his landmark novel *Samskara* (1965) as a doctoral student. The novel — about a Brahmin community's crisis of ritual and modernity — was translated into English in 1976 and is now a cornerstone of postcolonial South Asian literature. He served as chairman of India's Film and Television Institute, the Sahitya Akademi, and the National Book Trust, and was considered for the Nobel Prize. He was associated with the Navya movement in Kannada literature, which brought modernist techniques and social critique to regional Indian fiction. He was an outspoken critic of Hindu nationalism throughout his career. U. R. Ananthamurthy lived 1932 – 2014.