UR Ananthamurthy is one of my favorite writer. I decided to write something about him after I heard the news of his demis
8) He wrote Samkara in London.
In his early
30’s, he went to England on a scholarship for further studies. There something
happened that inspired him to write samskara.
After he writing the story, he sends the manuscript to Girish Karnad who
contacted a director and came up with the film script.
7) Most Brahmins hated him.
6) He was visiting professor for many international universities.
Works of UR Ananthamurthy
are well acclaimed in overseas as well. Many of his stories translated to
foreign languages especially, European languages. No wonder he was noticed by
foreign education. He was served as visiting professor in foreign universities
like University of Tubingen, Germany, University of Iowa and Tufts University,
United States.
5) Stated ’No literature works’ after he reading ‘Aavarana’.
He was always been a prominent
hater and critic of SL Bhyrappa since before our birth. Interestingly, I like
them both. ‘He doesn’t know how to write novel’ was his top (in) famous quote on
S.L.Bhyrappa. But Bhyrappa remained silent, as always. When ‘Aavarana‘ released, it shattered all Bhyrappa’s critics hearts and broke records. After reading
Aavarana, Ananthamurthy declared he would stop writing. He kept his words too. But I guess he stopped writing even before
that.
4) He fought his entire life for true democracy.
Inspired by Carl Marx, Gandhi
and many others UR Ananthamurthy believed in democracy which is not based on
classes or sects. And this is why he criticized BJP. UR Ananthamurthy was a brilliant person with depth
knowledge in political ideologies, deeper than any other. He always believed that in democracy all
voices need to be heard.
3) He loved poetry.
Rainer Maria
Rilke was a 19th century Austrian poet and novelist whose poetry
caught attention of UR Ananthamurthy. He loved the poems so much that he
eventually translated them to Kannada in 2009. While he was translating, he
wrote at least 25 translated versions of a verse just to achieve best closeness
to the original one. He was
uncompromising worker. Without UR Ananthamurthy, Kannada literature wouldn’t have
got the finest translations of western poets like Wordsworth, Yeats.
2) A Swedish movie inspired him to
write ‘Samskara’.
UR Ananthamurthy
used to watch plays and movies when he was studying at Birmingham University of
London, earning his Doctorate. One day he watches a Swedish movie ‘The seventh
seal’. This movie is actually about philosophical issues and problems created
by religion beliefs. He greatly moved by the story and then discusses it with
his tutor who later tells him to write a story about his experiences in India.
The result was ground breaking. He wrote ‘samskara’.
1) He shortlisted for The Man Booker Prize.
I’m really very
much excited to write it down. UR Ananthamurthy nominated for 2013 Man Booker Prize
for his works in fiction. He was the first and currently the only Kannada writer
who achieved this. When he went up on stage to read few pages from his novel, he
quoteed in Kannada first then he continues in English. You can watch the speech on Youtube Here.
Feel free to comment :)
Source: Internet and Books.
