Kannada literature’s best known figure, Jnanpith and Padma Award winner UR Ananthamurthy died on Friday evening after a prolonged illness.
Over the years he had associated himself with several people’s movements and used his fame to bring attention to issues concerning the most marginalized sections of the society.
His most famous work, Samskara, which is a trenchant treatise against caste and brahminism, alienated him from the Brahmin community into which he was born.
Note :
Udupi Rajagopalacharya Ananthamurthy was a contemporary writer and critic in the Kannada language and is considered as one of the pioneers of the Navya movement. He is the sixth person among eight recipients of the Jnanpith Award for the Kannada language, the highest literary honour conferred in India.
The Jnanpith Award is a literary award in India. Along with the Sahitya Akademi Fellowship, it is one of the two most prestigious literary honours in the country. The award was instituted in 1961. Any Indian citizen who writes in any of the official languages of India is eligible for the honour. It is presented by the Bharatiya Jnanpith, a trust founded by the Sahu Jain family, the publishers of the newspaper The Times of India.